Mail Boxes Etc: we’re expecting steady growth over the coming months
The Mail Boxes Etc. franchise network has reached a new milestone in its long-standing history in Australia, reaching over forty franchise locations.
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TNT Express inks retail alliance with Mail Boxes Etc Malaysia
Mail Boxes Etc. Malaysia, part of the international retail franchise network, has forged a strategic alliance with shipping integrator TNT Express.
Read MoreRetail outlets bring more pain to express operators
FedEx stated that it would take US$1.2 billion in charges in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended on May 31. The lion’s share of this is an $810 million charge against its retail outlet chain Kinko’s, which it acquired in 2004 and subsequently rebranded FedEx Office.
Read MoreUPS and Mail Boxes expand to 6,000 worldwide locations
Shipping and business services retail chain committed to future growth.
Read MoreUPS Franchisees file a complaint
More than 200 owners of UPS Stores across the country have filed a complaint against UPS and its franchiser, Mail Boxes Etc.
The franchise owners said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that they haven’t been able to make money because UPS undermined them by using the branded stores as drop-off points for prepaid packages and forcing the owners to focus on providing document and printing services.
The complaint, filed in April, claims the business model of the UPS Stores has been disastrous to franchisees’ bottom lines.
UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc. in 2001, and many franchises converted to UPS Stores about two years later.
The UPS Web site permits customers to print out their own shipping labels and pay online for delivery. Then they can drop the packages — for free — at a UPS Store.
Those formerly profitable customers no longer paid the stores directly for shipping, so the stores depended on payments from UPS for those packages, a development the franchisees in the suit said has “drastically reduced” the stores’ profitability.
It can take months, and sometimes years, for a complaint to be certified as a class-action suit, and for the lawsuits to be resolved.
A separate complaint filed May 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco accuses UPS of overbilling its franchise owners for shipping rates.
The former franchise owners aren’t so sure that document services can make up their losses.
The UPS Store franchise owners say they are just hoping to get back some of the money from their initial investments, which for some was more than USD 150,000.
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