According to our book “a franchise is the right to use a specific business’s name and sell its products or service in a given territory.” (page 131) When I tool the self-assessment test on Franchise Expo I scored a 10 which states that franchising has some attraction to me, but says I have some doubts that need to be carefully considered. I agree with this assessment because someday I want to own my own business and I might have to deal with franchising. But if I do deal with franchising I don’t want them to take over my company. I still want to be in charge of all the big decisions made by the company.
When I get older my dream has always been to own my very own successful business. I’m not positive in what industry I’d like to work in, but as of now I want to own my own gym. So when I was going through all the franchises I narrowed it down by searching for only franchises in the fitness industry. When I saw GNC I decided that I would chose them since that is a franchise that I have some previous knowledge about.
General Nutrition Center, or GNC is an enterprise that started in Pittsburg Pennsylvania in 1935. GNC specializes in the retail of health and nutrition related products including, vitamins, minerals, sports nutrition, supplement, diet and energy products. GNC started franchising their business in 1988. They now have over 7,100 locations in 45 countries worldwide. They have been the #1 vitamin retail franchise for 22 years in a row. When you buy a franchise you buy it for a 10 year period with the option to renew it for 5 more years two more times. The company charges a 6% royalty fee, which isn’t too bad. There are many reasons for me wanting to take the risk in opening a GNC. First off GNC spends over a million dollars a year in advertising, so it is a very well known company around the world, and each franchise only has to pay 3% of their total gross owning’s into advertising. Also GNC provides training to all new franchisees. They first give you in store training, which is followed by classroom training in Pittsburg. Also GNC provides someone to help you operate the store for the first week of the store opening. There has been a huge growth in the vitamin and supplement world as of recent so that means that there will always be new products.
Franchise expo was able to give me most of the information I needed to answer most of the questions in Figure 5.8. I got the other information at http://www.gncfranchising.com/dom_faq.asp#faq6.
1 comment:
I agree with your decision to open a fitness store. I made the same decision. I decided to open a gym instead. I think fitness is an industry that will always be successful because people are always learning more about health and trying to be healthy or in shape. I like your post and thought it was very interesting.
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