Archive for Items Categorized 'Avanti Magazine', only excerpts shown, click title for full entry.

Independent Contractor … Reality Or Fantasy?

  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 Percentage

  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 […]

Tracking Money Order Payments

  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 […]

FM Billing Issues

  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 […]

Promise of the CDC

  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 […]

Making the CDC Work For Us

  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, […]

Convenience Quick Serve, A New Store Strategy

  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 […]

The EBT/Food Stamp Benefits Authorization Process

  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 […]

7-Eleven, Wal-Mart And Dollar Stores

  7-Eleven franchisees have seen an explosion of 7-Select products inundate our stores in the past couple of years. These private label products have been propagated across the entire store, leaving no gondola unscathed. To accommodate these new arrivals, 7-Eleven has reduced the number of recommended national brand items. It has been stated that the […]

Good Will Sales-Time To Move On?

  If you are voluntarily considering a good will sale, or if SEI is making that decision for you, there are some things of which you should be aware. If it is just a matter of thinking that operating a 24/7/365 business for 20, 30 or more years is enough coffee and Slurpee under the […]