ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Surprised that he managed to sell the business on before it finally failed. I thought B&O took franchises back in house if they did not reach the required targets dictated by head office.
Not a business model I would want to invest in, particularly if I was also competing against long established B&O retailers in the same area, the likes of John Lewis nationally for Play products, B&O online, and B&O stores owned by national head offices, often after failure as a franchise first time around.
Graham
Interesting reading but isn't this the case in any franchisee/ franchisor relationship: no support from HQ; have to do things the HQ way; designated pricing strategy, etc.
I really feel for those people who put it all on the line and I think they have real guts.
Think about my town Melbourne, where there are 3 stores. I don't know how they do it. I'm the only one in my circle i know that has B&O. I'm not entirely sure they have the Pricing down right in their marketing mix, but i wish these stores do and can survive.
Just think of my local Coles Express petrol station. There are 2 owned by the same franchisee and when they closed the car wash down, i said, why did it close, to the reply of the franchisee because that car wash is going to cost way over $1M. He's just a local guy with a family - how would he ever recoup those costs?
I don't see anything in there really that is peculiar to B&O, even the slim margins. Plenty of stuff out there that doesn't have huge markup. It sounds like he's complaining that it cost a lot of money to open and run a store...if he really feels like this owning any kind of retail business is not for him. All franchises are expensive, storefront property costs money, and no matter what the business changes in the local area, shops going under, parking, can happen.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.