Definition of franchise store: refers to a retailer with an area of less than 800 square feet, which mainly deals in a limited number of supplementary goods and provides high-level services.
Different from department stores and discount stores, franchise stores are concentrated in a narrow market segment, and the types of goods they operate are not many, but they are very diverse. As far as commodity types are concerned, franchise stores can provide customers with better choices and evaluation by sales experts than department stores or discount stores. Customers are attracted by the variety of goods, personalization and familiar store atmosphere of the franchise stores.
The largest franchise chain companies are Gap company and limited company (specializing in clothing), Barnes &; Noble) company (specialized in books), Pierre L company (specialized in furniture), Zale company (specialized in jewelry), Payless company (specialized in shoes) and electronic boutique company (specialized in computer software) and so on. The so-called franchise stores generally refer to stores specializing in a certain category or brand of goods, which actually include specialty stores, franchise stores and home building materials stores in the national industry standards. The definition of a specialty store in the national standard is: the retail format that specializes in large categories of goods;
The definition of franchise stores is: the retail format that mainly deals in or authorizes a certain brand of goods, also known as franchise stores, partnership stores, chain stores, image stores, etc. ;
The definition of home building materials store is: a retail format that specializes in selling building materials, decoration and household items.
It can be seen that although there are obvious differences in the situation of these three formats, their similarity makes them the research object as a whole, and they all belong to specialized and in-depth franchise stores. Judging from the experience of franchisees in the world, more mature franchisees have the following characteristics:
Because of its particularity, franchise stores operate a wide range of goods with high technology content, which can meet the special needs of a certain market. This advantage of franchise stores is incomparable to other comprehensive stores, so their target customers are mainly mobile customers who have the purpose to buy a certain commodity. The core of franchise store management policy is diversification policy and differentiation policy. There are three procurement methods: store procurement, centralized procurement, and the combination of centralized procurement and store procurement. They pay more attention to the autonomy and flexibility of stores and can provide targeted services. In franchise stores, every shopping guide is an expert in a certain kind of commodity management. They help customers design consumption, design life and guide consumption according to their characteristics.
"Small scale" mainly refers to the small scale of monomer. In Europe and America, although there are many large-scale franchise stores over 10,000 meters, most of them are small-scale chain operations, with low prices, preferences and family-centered. If the franchise store is too big, it will be difficult for the goods to be "specialized" and lose their characteristics. However, due to the characteristics of product types and operation modes, the scale of home building materials stores tends to expand.
The franchise stores with distinctive "short payback period" are very attractive to the target market. In addition, the investment in a single store is small, so it does not need long-term debt management, and the investment can be recovered in a short time. Professional management ensures that it has a loyal consumer group, so the business risk of franchise stores is not great.
It is precisely because franchise stores have the above characteristics and advantages that they occupy an important position in the retail industry. It is not only a supplement to comprehensive formats such as department stores and supermarkets, but also an upgrade of retail formats, and meets consumers' higher-level needs through refined management.