Independent Mail & Parcel Centers in the Crosshairs Small Businesses are under Assault from Every Flank
Phoenix, AZ — The Phoenix Business Journal has reported that Tosco Marketing Co. — the Tempe -based operator of Circle K stores — has launched a new retail concept called e-Place.com where customers can shop online in a café and pick up and return their on-line orders at the same place. Parent company, Tosco Corporation is the largest independent oil refiner and marketer of petroleum products in the United States with sales of $23 billion. The company operates a network of approximately 6,500 retail outlets, 2,200 of which are company-controlled and operated under the Circle K brand.
The company refers to the concept as “a 21st century hybrid of the corner convenience store and coffee shop”, and says [the stores will] “let shoppers cash checks, access ATMs, rent post office boxes, copy and fax, and process film”.
The stores will contain touch-screen Internet kiosks that allow users to surf e-Place’s own catalog channels on terminals. Goods bought from these kiosks can be received at the store. E-Place’s first location — a 3,000-square-foot store in northwest Phoenix — includes a drive-thru window. The company plans to have 4,000 to 6,000 kiosks in service within the next 18 months.
Reportedly customers will be able to pay for online purchases with a “Cash Card,” similar to prepaid phone cards in order to avoid disclosing personal information on insecure Web sites. Tosco officials hope e-Place will be a place to hang out with friends with store hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week and refer to the concept as a cross between a cyber café and a Mail Boxes Etc.
The news is the latest in a long string of bad news for the independent Mail & Parcel Center (MPC) operators, in March of 1999 the Postal Service imposed stringent regulations that hurt MPC’s private mailbox rental business and then entered into an exclusive partnership with Mail Boxes, Etc., the largest franchiser of MPCs. In February of this year United Parcel Service opened their first corporately owned pack-and-ship store outside Atlanta Georgia and then entered in to a partnership with office product retail giant Office Depot to locate full service pack-and-ship counters in 550 Office Depot stores by years end. Leading West Coast drug retailer, Longs Drugs has begun offering pack-and-ship services and Federal Express is reportedly in discussions with the Postal Service which could result in a strategic alliance allowing FedEx to pick-up and deliver packages to USPS post office facilities.
It seems everybody wants a piece of the Mail & Parcel Center pie. The question is, will there be enough left over for the existing independent MPC operators?
