The UPS Store PLUS The eBay Drop-Off Store Equals?
Interesting story at Franchise Pick,
The UPS Store PLUS The eBay Drop-Off Store Equals?: "
In the 70’s, a classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial showed a nun and a normal guy walking briskly, happily, and unknowingly toward a streetcorner collision. Bizarrely (in retrospect), one of them was eating out of a jar of peanut butter and the other was eating a chocolate bar. Hilarity ensued when they inadvertently mixed those two great tastes (You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate!).
A great advertising slogan was born (’Two great tastes that taste great together’) and Reese’s became* the bestselling candy bar in the U.S. … a title it still holds.
Could The UPS Store and eBay auction service Receller be on another such happy collision course? Will ‘Two Dysfunctional Concepts That Function Great Together’ be the next great ad slogan of our time?
‘Two Dysfunctional Concepts That Function Great Together’
Franchise owners of The UPS Store claim that they were duped into buying a concept that saddles them with a shipping store concept that doesn';t make money for anyone except their namesake shipping giant. Many franchisees are irate, and are suing said shipping giant (UPS).
Franchise owners of various ‘eBay drop-off store; franchises, including industry leader iSold It, are fighting for their survival. iSold It has publicly acknowledged that its stores are unprofitable, failing and that the parent company itself could be down the tubes soon. Industry sites such as AmITheOnlyOne.Org and Auctionbytes have questioned the viability of the underlying concept itself.
The problem with marrying these two loser concepts should be obvious - the eBay drop-off fails because any other competitor can add eBay reselling to its services. There is no need for a dedicated eBay drop-off, pawn shops, second hand stores, consignment sellers, and the like can all add eBay as feature without ever even telling the consumer.
The eBay drop-off model is not going to work if you add the UPS store to it. The UPS store is handicapped by having to use, in practice, only UPS as a shipper. Asking even more people to drop of their packages so that can sold an eBay is plainly stupid, my opinion.
