Archive for Items Categorized 'Avanti Magazine', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.
Looking back at the cigarette category, one begins to realize how drastically it has changed over the last 10 years. Besides an eroding unit count and diminishing profit margins, we have lost all control over a category that system-wide represents 23 percent of our sales and a good percentage of our stores’ gross profit […]
We have recently been notified that 7-Eleven is undergoing a dramatic reorganization—dubbed Project E by the higher-ups at corporate—in order to streamline operations and make the system more efficient. As part of this project, everything will eventually be run out of one central location—the corporate headquarters in Dallas. In a way, it makes a […]
Rarely does a week go by that I do not hear from a franchisee, “Can they do that? I’m an independent contractor!” Typically the answer is a resounding yes, they can, despite the legal definition of an “independent contractor” and the language in paragraph 2 of your store agreement, which states, in part: “You […]
Gross profit dollars and total gross profit percent (GP%) of merchandise sales play a very significant role from the moment we first franchise a store. The franchise fee, for one, is based on total GP dollars, using different percentages for different brackets of gross profit dollars. The day-to-day operation of the store and product […]
Almost six months ago, SEI instituted a policy that drastically altered the payment method to vendors and affected every franchise store. This policy came about when the Accounting Department made the strategic decision to reduce its number of employees as a cost cutting measure. To accomplish this downsizing, franchisees and vendors were notified that […]
Facilities and maintenance are an important function of our business, because equipment is directly related to sales. We need to have all of our revenue-generating equipment properly running 24 hours a day. In the recent past we’ve had challenges with facilities and maintenance—like keeping the equipment up, lackluster repair response times, and problems with […]
After a decade of struggling to find a suitable daily delivery system for our stores, 7-Eleven has begun a transformation to what hopes to be a better solution for a daily distribution model. What started out as a network of warehouses and a fleet of small trucks that were designed to deliver fresh foods […]
For quite some time there has been a lot of concern and many questions in the franchise community regarding the CDC flat fee. For instance, franchisees like to know what they are paying for a particular product or SKU, and the flat fee structure made real cost of goods really difficult to discern. Fortunately, […]
At the most recent National Coalition Board of Directors meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, FOA presidents, vice presidents, and vendors had the chance to hear about a new store strategy from SEI Vice President of Merchandising Jesus Delgado Jenkins. The strategy represents a pulling together of resources, and a redefining of food retail […]
As many of you are aware, the majority of our customers pay cash or via credit/debit cards for their purchases. However, the number of customers using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—previously known as food stamps—has risen significantly in recent years due to the soft economy and high unemployment rate, and they are as […]
