Dissin' Franchisement Follow

I'm not saying either party can't seek judgement from the courts in the case of a perceived contract breech. Perhaps "this is not a legislative issue" would have been a more accurate opinion.

I'm not assuming one way or the other. He spoke only about $3M and 80 workers at risk. Whether that's his sole business or just part of it, the point about being able to shift that production to another outlet is still valid. Businesses change vendors all the time. It's usually a very good thing, since it keeps markets competitive. If he's making a good product, he should be able to find new customers for it. Running to the local government to have them pass a law to protect him from having to do this is kinda nutty.

The guy is probably either competing with other people for his region's contracts, or is already in business with all the outlets that want his business so the chance that he can "find another outlet" is like zero either way.

You do say and imply that "anybody can pull themselves up by their boot-straps" pretty much all the time, though, so you can see how he might be a bit confused.

Which is a remarkably retarded thing to say.

An argument implies there's a plausible opposing point, not someone just trying to cover their error.

Also post count.

Edited, May 10th 2013 9:33am by lolgaxe

And by retarded you mean "brilliantly relevant", right?

The core issue is whether a company, which has contractual authority to decide how its franchises receive their product, can actually exercise that authority if (in this case) it'll cause a loss of revenue to the guy who's been providing that product to the franchises previously. His argument is basically that since he'll lose business as a result of this, that even though the contracts allow for this (which must be true, or they'd be fighting it in the courts rather than in the legislature), that the state should pass a law preventing them from being able to do this effectively protecting his business from competition.

In a free market, no one's obligated to buy your product. That includes the Dunkin Donuts company. He's free to make his doughnuts. He's free to sell them to anyone who'll buy them. But to go to the legislature and essentially attempt to force a company to buy them? That's wrong. Period.

Edited, May 10th 2013 1:14pm by gbaji

Dude. This is the Asylum.




Sure. So his doughnuts are not sufficiently in demand for him to sell those he was selling to the franchises elsewhere. Where's the problem with this, much less the problem with pointing it out?



I said he's free to sell to other people. I never said this was some magic that ensured that other people would want to buy his product though. If he can, great. If he can't, then demand for his product isn't high enough to justify the revenue he wants (or used to have in this case).

What the hell do you think people do when someone decides they don't want to buy their product anymore? They find other people to buy it, or they switch to some other business. That's all I was saying. Also, this is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's why we don't sell many wooden wagon wheels anymore. Not because some government authority mandated a change, but because the market dried up as people switched from wagons to cars, and went with rubber tires.


What's retarded is the number of people who don't seem to get that this is a natural normal and good process.

I know, I know, "BUT THAT ISN'T WHAT I MEEEEAAAAANT!!!" This isn't a broad free market topic; we're right now discussing a specific market type. Twist all you want, "brilliantly relevant" is still "brilliantly relevant," no matter how much your special needs helper wipes the drool from your shirt. Is he in this thread posting, too? Is that who you think you're arguing with? Another "brilliantly relevant" point of yours.

As someone who worked for DD, I can confirm that it's definitely a franchise that has a LOT of rules and regulations.

But at the same time, that means the owners pretty much have zero responsibilities, if they want. There's a regional manager who will handle any issue concerning the brand, from customer complaints to employee discipline (if it's anything close to severe enough that an owner would have gotten involved). You don't have to handle marketing. All the logistics stuff (schedules, payroll, etc.) is so minor that a single manager can effectively handle it and spend most of the week bored, particularly because Dunkin has an automated payroll system.

The guy I worked for owned, iirc, 12 of the stores. I'm sure he was making quite a bit of money, for essentially no effort. I'd wager he spent a maximum of two hours a week doing anything related to his stores (plural). In the four or five months I worked at mine, he visited maybe twice. And he was relatively local.

That's not to say that there isn't more payoff for more time spent. There is. A more active owner would probably grow a larger community presence, would be able to more effectively optimize hours (Dunkin has certain hours of operation requirements, but you can expand past them if you wish), do more effective market research so he gets the most out of each order.

But doing NONE of that is still going to make you money if:
-the franchise is doing well.
-your store is clean and efficient.
-your staff aren't ********.

That's why a franchise is attractive. So I have no interest in listening to the complaints of a store owner. You don't get to open a business piggy-backing off someone else's brand, which they have licensed to you, and then complain about their brand choices. Newsflash: you don't own or have any authority over the brand. Your choice to associate with the brand was just that - your choice.

If you want to have a say in the company, reinvest your profits in stock. You'll get to take part in the shareholder's meetings, which are now required to be available online in the US. The more you grow your own businesses, the more DD is going to take note of your successes (and thus use you for research, which I believe has a financial bonus to it). The more success you have there, the more stock you own.

I DO agree that not being able to pass on the business to an heir could be a serious issue. But I can also see the franchise's side of things - that takes away their ability to police who has access to their license. Maybe the answer is for them to be required to award the license to or buy out the heir.

What that would actually mean, I have no clue. But there IS a version of this I can see that is extremely problematic:

Some parent takes out a loan to open a franchised shop - leases the space, pays for the license, buys all the equipment (which is typically EXTREMELY expensive - a BR soft ice cream machine probably costs at least 10k, if not 15+). He dies suddenly, and now his kids are saddled with his debt. They have a lease on a space that can't be used as a Dunkin Donuts anymore, they own equipment designed for use with DD items (smoothie machine, for instance), and I bet a fair amount of that came with licenses that it CAN'T be used with anything but approved DD goods.

They're essentially ******* They're saddled with all the debt, with no way to repay it, simply because they don't have the right to keep their doors open. That's an issue to me.

But if DD was required to buy them out, IF they don't approve the license (so the people can't just demand the cash), then it at least zeroes out the debt to the heir.

Amazing what happens when you stop editing out half of what I said.



Correct. I never said that he can automatically successfully sell his doughnuts to other retailers. I even included a whole sentence about what it means if he can't do so. So how about you stop trying to pretend that I never considered the possibility that he might not be able to sell his doughnuts elsewhere when I quite clearly did.

Ok?

What the ******* **** are you talking about? Contract Law is an entire division in courts. The interpretation of a contract changes "on a whim" all the damn time, from differing jurisdictions, judges and new rulings. This is clearly an issue for the courts and not legislation but could you pretend, after all the YEARS of debating the meaning of a contract (which you've routinely screwed up since Jump Street) that you finally understand it?

My god you're stupid.

My god people on this forum suck at reading. What part of me saying "this is something that should be decided in the courts" made you think I didn't realize that we have a system (the courts) to deal with this? My entire point was that we should deal with this in the courts, but that this guy, having (presumably) failed to get the results he wanted in said courts, is trying to get the law changed after the fact. Holy hell!