Etyres Franchise
Before you buy please check out the following:
Contact as many franchisees as you can, NOT just the few suggested by T Bowman
Ask them about the 5% they loose, briefly, the sale price on the web say 105 for a tyre, you only receive 100 but this is NOT CLEARLY explained in the prospectus figures at all, it comes as a shocker to all franchisees.
Ask them how many franchisee meetings they have been invited to (none)
Ask if inter franchisee communication is encouraged (it is almost forbidden)
Ask if they know therefore how many other franchisees exist, how many started this year, how many collapsed this year (they are kept in the dark)
Take the prospectus suggested turn over, divide by the number of suggested franchisees, get an average t/o per franchise.
Ask T Bowman what the actual etyres t/o is (about 5 million in 2008) divide that by the number of franchisees to get a more truthful average.
Ask to see the audited t/o figure, all franchisees are entitled to this figure as they pay a small %age towrds marketing based on this figure (is why they are entitled to see the figure) when he refuses to give it to you ask yourself why! If he provides it, after dividing by the (probably inflated) suggested number of franchisees, you will see etyres provides a very small part of the t/o that you will have to achieve to make a go of it, so you are going to have to do al the work here, and having paid what 30k for the franchise, 5% on any sales they get for you by website, and paying a further %age for marketing (there WAS a 100k loan to web site set up costs in 2008) you may conclude it is all uphill work! I suggest you buy a van from a dying franchisee, and get going on your own! Much cheaper, and you can still contract to etyres, they pay contractors better than franchisees (the contractor does not have the 5% taken off!)
I uttery agree with the other etyres comments, they appear so nice, once they have you signed up, they become adversarial, bullies, horrid. I could not believe a group of adults would take this abusive behaviour from the person they were in business with, then I realised why, the contract is so one sided, you sign away all reasonable rights, T Bowman uses this to harass, brow beat and generally makes life miserable for the franchisees, WHEN the franchisee gives up, the area is sold again, T Bowman makes more from selling franchises than from running the business, I suspect strongly.
About 10 franchisees went under in 12 months or so, many in huge debt, having remortgaged their homes to attemtp to keep afloat, lives were ruined, families wrecked, and it all comes down to the franchisee believing what a nice genuine team the etyres people are, and once signed up, the reality kicks in.
READ the contract! If you can not understand it get someone who can, ignore the nitty gritty, look for the parts that say you have no rights, get a solicitor to read it, it really is worth spending a few hundred pounds NOW... It might just save your home, your marriage, even your sanity!
Or simply walk away NOW!
Try to contact some of the franchisees who left,
Blackburn, East Sussex, Swansea, Chester, N Ireland, Hull, Wrexham,
Try Yell.com for a list of etyres franchisees, a good source for locating them, ask T Bowman for a longer list, and NOTE this, one report here says I was embarassed at the losses, all are embarrassed or in denial, and many will say its working fine, get some hard data from them, ask about t/o, ask about the 5%,
The one set of franchisees who are held up as a success have 3 territories, they purchased 2 of these from departing franchisees for a lot less than you will be asked to pay, they have jobs inside etyres which gives them a competitive advantage, they are on record as saying they worked 24/7 for 3 yaers and earned close to nothing for their endevours, it was THEN that they were appouinted jobs inside etyres, I suspect because had they walked away at that stage, T Bowman would have had no reference franchisees to put forward to seduce the next batch of franchisees. This dynamic duo (and they are) also had an offlicense business, were single and really put everything they had into it, effectivley they failed too! They achieved a MODEST turnover (divide by 3 to get t/o per territory and the glory numbers become very average, and again by their own admission they made almost nothing in 3 years of building it up.
There will always be issues (like etyres paying for wheels to be repaired and flowers to pacify customer all charged to franchisee, (this behaviour is true, it happened a lot, it was unfair) but even if you ignore this and say sounds like a lazy useless franchisee is upset with a good franchisor here, if that good, why no contact between frachisees? Smell a rat? Walk off!
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