Crowdfunding Financing for Veterans Buying Franchises

From Florida Today: As veterans return from the front lines to the workplace, a Melbourne company has established a software platform and website to help them raise money to buy franchises.

Buying and selling online soon will become the dominant way of commerce. Raising money online to start businesses likely won’t be far behind.

“There’s no gap between our virtual and non-virtual lives,” said Mark Mohler, an attorney and the chief executive officer of the website Sprigster.com, which launched in February.

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Unishippers Celebrates 25th Year with Exciting Expansion

Founded in 1987 and with more than 290 franchise locations today, Unishippers Global Logistics, LLC, a franchise company in the transportation industry that provides small business owners a complete line of shipping options, including express, ground, freight, and international, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary.

Thanks to partnerships with more than thirty regional and national shipping carriers, including, UPS®, YRC Freight™, Estes, and Saia, Unishippers can offer small and mid-sized businesses complete shipping options, attractive pricing, state-of-the-art technology and dedicated account service teams that its customers can’t receive anywhere else.

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Fast-Food Giants Converting Stores to Franchises

From the Wall Street Journal: Weaker sales following the recession are prompting many big fast-food franchises to adopt leaner business models by unloading company-owned outlets to franchisees.

The latest example is Burger King Holdings Inc., which is in the midst of a turnaround and counting on a bigger appetite for restaurant ownership among people like Vince Eupierre of Corona, Calif.

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Home-based Franchises Are All The Rage

From Nu Wire Investor. It used to be that franchises were born in a brick-and-mortar establishment, with historical examples that include McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts and KFC.

Now, home-based franchises are becoming more popular – and more successful. As of 2007, more than half of U.S. businesses were home-based and some franchise segments like home improvement and maintenance services are almost entirely dominated by home-based business franchises.

Lower start-up costs, lower overhead and more advanced technology have helped attract more entrepreneurs to the market of home-based franchises.

The number of home based franchises continues to grow and in some franchise segments the home based feature exists in the majority of the franchise companies.

Looking back into franchise history the typical franchise was a bricks and mortar franchise whether it was a KFC, Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds. It wasn’t that long ago that a home based franchise was considered an anomaly or an exception to what we typically consider a franchise.

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Incentives for Restaurant Franchise Owners

From The Wall Street Journal: Restaurant operators are using incentives to encourage their franchisees to keep growing, despite the struggling economy.

Companies such as Papa John's International Inc. and Denny's Corp. are establishing lending programs, cutting back royalty fees and assisting their franchisees in other ways to push growth in new markets and help those in challenged ones, even if it hurts the company's earnings in the short term.

Restaurant operators are using incentives to encourage their franchisees to keep growing, despite the struggling economy.

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