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(FranchisePick.Com) “One would think that the UPS franchise owners would have generated a lot of support from fellow business owners… But I’ve found the UPS store owners to be a tough group to love.”
I have posted extensively on the struggles of The UPS Store franchise owners, who claim they have suffered a raw deal at the hands of the corporate giant.
Many of them purchased Mail Boxes, Etc. (MBE) franchises, and initially offered multiple shipping options, including both FedEx and UPS. When MBE was acquired by UPS, many franchisees claim they were pressured to both convert to the UPS name and drop competitive shipping alternatives like FedEx. Once they did, many franchisees allege, UPS began undercutting them by marketing lower rates directly to their potential consumers. To make matters worse, parcel-delivery-associated UPS name impaired their ability to market add-on services such as photocopying and document printing.
The franchisees have at least two lawsuits in progress against UPS.
It’s ironic that UPS, a company that caters to business owners, would treat their own small business owners so harshly. One would think that the UPS franchise owners would have generated a lot of support from fellow business owners and UPS stockholders.
My “bubble [wrap] of self-importance” is popped by barbed Cliches du Jour.
But I’ve found the UPS store owners to be a tough group to love. On my first trip to one of their forums, I was almost immediately attacked as a spy and outsider. When I recently suggested that UPS owners should bolster their contentions by providing some specific examples of stores that were operated by the book but still failed or failing, I was assailed with several insulting emails from a store owner who posts anonymously as “Fedup”:
You have an unjustifiably inflated opinion of yourself, as perhaps befits someone with a writing degree from a third-tier school…. Now that I’ve insulted you, as you did me on your blog, I hope I’ve been able to puncture your bubble of self-importance and get your attention so you can focus on the ‘graph following, which is provided as CONFIDENTIAL
This was followed by more vague ramblings and no “graph.” When I suggested to him that it would be possible to provide specific examples without undermining their lawsuit by, say, linking to published stories, I got more insults:
Your above attempt at sarcasm is both banal and pathetic. Being in a lawsuit precludes litigants from making specific statements could work against them, period…
And as a final reminder, once again, I repeat: As to whether we can prevail–or, to use your awkward expression, “outgun a corporate giant”–you seem to forget that a guy named David outgunned a giant quite handily. Or, to use another cliché de jour, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
…I’m through engaging in a battle of wits with the unarmed.
Whew! This is how UPS owners communicate with writers sympathetic to their cause?
My bubble [wrap] of self-importance had been pierced and my writing ability trashed by a man who uses the term cliché de jour.
I didn’t have the energy to clarify that a children’s Bible story involving a giant, a rock and a slingshot was not what I meant by a specific, tangible example…
I resisted the temptation to stoop to his level, to lash back that if he was so smart, why’d his Ivy League education lead him to owning a money-losing mailroom where daily he curses the very packing peanuts and bubble wrap that once brought him such delight? And why, pray tell, is he such a dick?
(Ok. I lied. I didn’t resist that last temptation).
I will continue to try to remember that one loudmouthed jerk should not reflect poorly on all The UPS Store owners. I will even consider that he may be a corporate shill, one of them outside agitators. But UPS franchise owners might want to consider reining in some of their colleagues.
It’s great to see there’s a lot of fight in the dog, but sometimes a leash, muzzle and few sessions at BarkBusters can do wonders for your public image.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
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Fedup;
I agree that Sean should not be soliciting, even in ignorance, statements which may bite your behind in litigation.
I hope that I was sufficiently clear about that.
Here is what I disagree about, your statement:
“Realistically, I’m of the view that operating our businesses well demands a high level of time and effort, and precludes such a venture.”
If you have time to slag Sean and post on other boards, you have time to make user generated content work for your association.
Be happy to talk about offline, or get Mike R to talk with at the upcoming AAFD meetings.
Michael, your previous comment that I was referencing was the following:
“Fedup: As you probably know, I used to be in many of the UPS/MBE boards. But I had to disengage because I was basically doing the same thing that Sean was doing: asking people to make statements that might have hurt their litigation chances.”
In sum, that’s the biggest bone I have to pick with Sean.
As far as your worthwhile suggestion of us creating our own online network, I agree that it would be a difficult job–and bigger than any of us have time to take on. It’s one thing to take a moment and loose a salvo of rebuttal at someone whose ill-advised suggestion would work to our deteriment, or at an individual like John, who posts unsupported assertions.
It’s quite another thing, and more like a full-time job, to field the resources that another online network–in addition to at least three that already exist for our franchisees–would require. Realistically, I’m of the view that operating our businesses well demands a high level of time and effort, and precludes such a venture.
Fedup; I actually wasn’t slagging Sean for stirring it up. Rather I was suggesting a new focus for all of you, which would allow you to compartmentalize the lawsuit.
Sean said:
>>I’m sure they’re painting a vivid picture of the success to a group of franchise prospects right now. I’m sure the pages of Entrepreneur, their #11 ranking, and their impressive name is accomplishing what they need it to.
And since those with the knowledge are too afraid (for many legitimate and understandable reasons) to provide a clear, compelling warning to them, UPS has little reason to join the argument.
Why should they? They not only hold the cards, they own the deck.<<
Sean, I am a little confused about your response.
I don’t know that anyone asked UPS to respond here.
I only asked the righteous franchise who accused us of devaluing the franchise to back up his vague claims of success.
UPS does not own any of the franchises out right and has no clue as to how to run one.
We want to hear from John who claims to own at least three seasoned locations ( all in business more than 3 years) to quantify his success.
A few questions have been asked, let me add three more!
John, how many of your locations are operating at the million dollar level?
In fact, do all of your locations combined generate STR in excess of $1,000,000 annually?
How many locations do you own, I understand that several indicates more than two, but how many more?
Another very worthwhile insight from Michael Webster: “Traffic created by your posts allows B5Media to sell advertising here – from which they in turn pay Sean to write.”
“Ask the Man” has again suggested that if there are really success stories to be heard, that “John” or others provide the details. They haven’t, because they can’t.
On the other hand, it’s been made clear that the lawyers want those in the lawsuits to button up ’till the shooting is over and the smoke clears…don’t make yourself a target. Again, Michael Webster has agreed.
If a prosepective franchisee wants the whole story, it’s as close as google.
Bottom line, apparently, Sean keeps stirring the pot ’cause it puts money in his pocket for blogging.
Why then has no one posted the success stories other than to vaguely allude that some hard working store owners are making a good living.
I’m sure they’re painting a vivid picture of the success to a group of franchise prospects right now. I’m sure the pages of Entrepreneur, their #11 ranking, and their impressive name is accomplishing what they need it to.
And since those with the knowledge are too afraid (for many legitimate and understandable reasons) to provide a clear, compelling warning to them, UPS has little reason to join the argument.
Why should they? They not only hold the cards, they own the deck.
I do not think the purpose of posting here is to tilt at wind mills or prove who is right or wrong.
Many times, we are tempted to post just to prove we won’t take it laying down without a fight.
I would like to point out that it is very difficult for anyone to post the details of a particular location that failed and to prove that the location “followed the program”. The person who knows best may have been silenced by the franchisor or litigation or simply so wounded as to not want to talk about it.
On the other hand, it would seem easy enough for someone who has followed the program and suceeded to share the facts of that success. The franchisor is not going to dispute their story. The franchisor is not going to try to intimidate them into keeping the light under a basket.
Why then has no one posted the success stories other than to vaguely allude that some hard working store owners are making a good living.
What is a good living? Let’s see some dollars and cents, a little comparison to a middle to upper management income plus a reasonable return on the at risk investment.
Come on, John, or anybody else, define success!
Sean and others;
Let me make an observation, which is relevant to all IndFA’s.
There is one valuable asset you all have: user generated content.
You have proven it here. Traffic created by your posts allows B5Media to sell advertising here – from which they in turn pay Sean to write.
Any IndFA could own their own online network devoted to solving the consumer problems with their services.
The network is created by independent operators offering their suggestions, solutions and observations that have value to consumers.
The network over time will generate traffic, and traffic pays.
All of this could be done completely independently of the merits of the ongoing lawsuits.
This is only an outline of a very difficult job -but why not get paid for sharing with consumers? If you have time to complain, you have time to make contribute and make money.
None of which is to suggest that the very real complaints against UPS are less real, less important or anything like that.
We’re tired. We’ve tried these blogs ad-nauseum.
I realize that, and it’s understandable that you guys are tired and frustrated.
May I suggest you take a breath and a step back for a moment?
A little respect goes a long way.
This is my blog. This is not a continuation of the flaming diatribes you may have going at BlueMauMau, Brainfuel, Brown or Platinum boards. Those serve that purpose.
Dharma & Fedup coming here, into into my house, and telling me to go bug someone else or get off my butt is even more laughable than it is rude. That OuttoLunch doesn’t realize how inappropriate dragging out the same old dusty focus group data and the fact that you still think I called you lazy slackers indicates you haven’t even taken the time read enough of the blog to understand the tone, content or focus of FranchisePick.com. You guys are the blogging equivalent of guests who stop be, spill chips on the rug, then split as soon as the free beer’s gone.
Maybe part of your weariness comes from travelling around in a pack of the same people, blasting the same tired arguments into any box with a “Submit” button.
People like FedUps have no interest in exchanging ideas or engaging in civil discussion, just blasting out the same thing over and over toward anyone unlucky enough to be nearby. And while the unjustified arrogance and humorous attempts at appearing sophisticated and elitist, even baiting her is not worth the effort.
If you’re afraid to talk, why are you here?
Those who want to rehash the same old stuff are free to start their own blogs and bore each other to sleep. If your lawyers won’t let you talk, or if a wrong word will jeopardize 5 years, your future, your big important case… what the hell are you doing here telling us that you can’t talk? Go watch American Idol. Go rearrange your packing peanuts.
If you’re interested in exchanging ideas without fear of getting your pee-pee whacked for it, please stay.
If you’re as sick as I am of these self-important blowhards who must make every conversation about them and turn every forum into showcase for their self-righteous pontifications, then let’s do something worth our time.
Taking a gander with new eyes might be worth trying
J Brown and Ask The Man, you are both reasonable and both weary. I’d suggest that the weariness is from going down the same track over and over. Maybe you need to indulge in a mental change of pace, some new ideas, some fresh thinking.
Here are some:
Could a few minutes helping others renew your spirit?
Perhaps you’d find it rewarding to use your hard lessons to help others. I’ve pointed out that the enormous, well-funded UPS PR machine is actively recruiting new franchise owners. Prospectives come to FranchisePick.com (which is ranked as high as UPS’ site for “UPS Store Franchise” in Google) when doing their research. For 3-4 posts I have tried to get someone to post a cogent explanation and brief example of why the business model serves UPS, but not the franchisee, and even in good conditions they will likely be only marginally profitable. Many frustrated, even bankrupt, franchisees on this site have had their spirits renewed by helping others avoid decisions with devastating consequences.
“the only truly effective tool that all of us have is the litigation itself” Are you sure?
Does the lawsuit make you feel more – or less – empowered? It seems to me that litigation – meant to be liberating or provide vindication – is possibly more imprisoning than the franchise relationship itself.
I’m sure this is an idea that will draw more ire – or get me suspected of being a covert UPS operative (Hanoi Sean), but think about it. Has it made you feel empowered, other than momentarily? Or has it made you more angry, more bitter, more frustrated with the long, drawn process, endless paperwork and legal bills… having to read all those engaging legal documents, spend all that time in victim mode?
It sure doesn’t seem too liberating to me. You’re afraid to even talk about your situation, right? I know there are lots of legal reasons beyond my limited comprehension. After all, the legal system would have no vested interest in wanting to keep all communication in within courtroom appearances or in volumes of documents drafted at, what, $300 – $400 an hour?
Anyone familiar with the huge legal bill the still-unknown Ben & Jerry’s incurred when they sued Pillsbury? They didn’t. They waged a low-budget “What’s the Doughboy Afraid of?” campaign that forced a settlement and propelled them to national fame. I’m sure their lawyers strongly advised against it.
An anti-puppy mill advocate just got many millions of dollars of publicity and prompted a series of internationally broadcasted exposes. Cost? $10,000 for a billboard placed a block from Oprah’s office. I’m sure his lawyer’s would have frowned on such an idea.
I’m sure going public would jeopardize the millions you’ll each receive to your years spent under the angry cloud, but it would feel great, wouldn’t it?
Take Responsibility.
Consider admitting to yourself that no one made you buy an MBE franchise. Wasn’t the possibility of MBE being bought out by an evil, oppressive overlord one of the risk factors? But you did it anyway, right? If you then converted to the UPS brand, that was also your decision, right? The fact that they could be lying was one of the risk factors, but you did it anyway?
Taking responsibility for your own decisions could prove to be even more liberating than your lawsuit. Or not. But it’s worth trying, if only once.
Amen, “Ask the Man.” If Sean wants to learn more and is too lazy to do a little investative reporting, talking to store owners firsthand, he can google for it. It’s all there, and there’s more than plenty.
If any prospective franchisee doesn’t do the same as part of due diligence, they’re not likely to stumble across the info on this blog. I’d suggest that we follow our legals’ advice and go dark here.
In my last post, I tried to put light on how to find the published Stories that will answer many of the questions. I did get a bit worked up and editorialized on the things that we who saw the writing on the wall were and are still upset about.
The only reason these things are still being brought up is that UPS has steadfastly refused to address the problems! In fact, whenever representatives of the franchises seek to have a rational discussion with UPS, they are rebuffed and told they better get counsel because MBE & UPS are not going to negotiate.
Anyway, enough of the rant. Anyone who wants to learn more than will ever be posted here, needs only to google UPS/MBE and will find more than ample articles from respected publications that detail what is more with the program, names, history, the works.
Dharma,
In posts over on TB, you write well.
Please do so here. This is no different than when you write elsewhere
And here I thought you wanted a healthy debate.
My mistake..
Sean,
We’re tired. We’ve tried these blogs ad-nauseum. It seems that the only truly effective tool that all of us have is the litigation itself, and none of us want to jeopardize a positive outcome for the sole reason of proving ourselves right on this forum. When and if the cases are sucessful, we will be vindicated.
Rita,
Lazy is the last thing these owners are (yes Sean, the word slackers was out of line). Many of these stores are the largest stores in the country, and have worked more convoluted MBE programs than you could shake a stick at. Now these owners work day and night at trying to make things right, while all along running their stores. Many of us have sacrificed family, friends, and any semblance of a social life, in this bitter struggle against one of the largest corporations in the world.
Lazy? Rita, go back to your mousepads, your pack and ship promise, and make sure that you sell that drop off a pen. The MAC will have another can’t lose program for you next year, if you click your heels three times. In the meantime, we’ve got work to do.
I asked if someone could name a well run store that failed because of the inherently flawed business model.
Rants. Raves. Insults. No example.
I think you’ve answered the question.
Sean,
First in order to make money you need money and many of us have maxed out every credit card we can get our hands on to continue these disasters (TUPSS). The money that does come in pays for the bills in the years before, some of the current ones and the 30% interest cc companies charge now which makes it tough to advertise, print, or anything else.
You seem to want to know a lot but why should you care. This is our fight and, not yours, and we are not going to just tell you what is going on. When it is all over, you will know. Until then, stop bugging us. We are not going to tell someone we don’t know what is going on just so UPS will now know what we know. Those in litigation are in the fight of their lives and pay money for that. Unless you are willing to pay for us, you don’t need to know anything.
You keep the pressure on so someone will finally snap and tell you things just so you shut up. I can see why Fedup blasted you. The best way to deal with people like you is to say nothing and let you have your say. You don’t own a TUPSS and therefor have no knowledge as to what is going on. So I say, ignore him people. He may not go away, but you will be less stressed at the end of the day if you don’t have to constantly answer his posts.
Why don’t you go bug Quiznos…
“Out to Lunch,” I respectfully suggest that #6 is actually #1 with a bullet.
“Flaw #6
Having your vendor (UPS) control your cost AND your retail. These stores do upwards of 60-70% of their total Gross Sales in shipping.”
Further, to think that emphasis on other profit centers–such as copying/document services or mailbox rental–will significantly shift this percentage, when the name over your door is The UPS Store, is simply naive, ill-advised, or, unfortunately, stupid. What you are says what you do, and if UPS Stores can’t achieve profitability with shipping UPS, you’re in trouble deep.
Flaw #6
Having your vendor (UPS) control your cost AND your retail.
These stores do upwards of 60-70% of their total Gross Sales in shipping
Flaw #7
Allowing the FAC and MAC to make decisions for you. These are NOT professional accountants nor media guru’s. They are JUST store owners like yourself, who UPS and MBE can pin all the fault on
Flaw #5: Relying on what consumers say they will pay rather than actual live testing of what consumers will actually do.
You want examples, locations, names, etc. etc.
They are out there, rather than hunt through Blue Mau Mau for the lost threads, go to google and search on “UPS/MBE”. You will get about 4500 items mostly articles that have been published in reputable newspapers. Some redundancy, admittedly, but certainly plenty of facts presented about the true situationAnd with the names, locations and other pertinent details.
What OutToLunch States is pretty much spot on,
The “test” was engineered to come out the way UPS wanted it to, not to be a fair and balanced comparison. Of course, the UPS Store ads were more compelling, more money was spent and a new name and an ad showing the MBE morph into
a UPS Store in front of your eyes certainly gets more attention that simply running a standard MBE ad with a tagline about lower prices direct from UPS. The Drew Carey type talking about big brown stepping it up a notch and we’ll be wearing the shorts in the spring certainly was cute and memorable even if the rest of the message was a bit misleading.
Of course they did not mention that the prices “direct from UPS” really represented dramatic amounts taken direct from the franchisees pocket or that the plan was a classic bait and switch scheme. Get them out of the line at the post office with the low price pitch and then “sell them up” to a higher priced air product that they may not need. The ability of the store owner to break even was highly dependent on the sale of air products instead of ground.
The average mandated retail price on ground was about $5 less with the cost to the store owner only about $1 less. Bottom line, the only way to make it was to make $4 less per package and make it up on volume. The volumes needed to double and this did not happen. Sure, some store s did actually double their UPS package volume but a substantial portion came from cannibalization of packages that would have been shipped Fedex or Post Office under the old successful MBE model. Fedex volumes went down by 100%. Postal volumes went down significantly.
The dog and pony show made a big deal of the so called consumer focus group research, once again the questions asked were engineered to get the answers they wanted and even then if you paid attention it was obvious that the conclusions were based on faulty assumptions.
Example: Focus group participants were asked how much they would pay to ship a package at an MBE, IF it cost $5 to ship at the post office, and assuming the post office and the MBE were equal distance from the consumer.
Supposedly, 4% would be willing to pay 20 to 40% more (i.e. $7 – $9.00. The implication was that MBE was losing the other 96% by its prices.
Supposedly, 3% would be willing to pay somewhere between $5.01 and $7. The implication being that by dropping the price to that range, the number of participants shipping at the UPS Store would jump from 4% to 7%, a 75% increase.
Flaw 1, at that time, there were approximately 3,500 MBES and over 38,000 post offices. Thus
the likelihood of meeting the equal distance criteria was minimal.
Flaw 2, at that time, there was no package being shipped by the post office for $5, so the number was purely hypothetical.
Flaw 3, it was not clear where in that $5 to $7 range the actual tipping point might lie. Therefore , the alleged potential increase was a sophisticated wild ass guess at best.
Flaw 4, due to residential surcharges and zones, there were precious few packages that would even fall in that $5 to $7 range if shipped by UPS at the “new retail rates”
Many consumers were misled by the ads, went to the UPS Store for the lower prices, were upsold to air services they did not need, went ahead and paid for this once and never came back.