It's not just 7-Eleven. I wouldn't want to be a franchisee of any sort in the US. The power dynamic is horrible.
McDonald's is probably one of the better ones. But you're still beholden to them. They often own the land under the building, if not the building itself. They tell you exactly what you must do. They tell you when to remodel. They make you buy from their suppliers. They can decide to open another store a mile away from yours.
But longer term I think the worst franchise to be in will be car dealerships. Once EVs become mainstream, the service revenue will fall by about 80%. There's just so much less to go wrong. How will dealers be able to pay for the overhead of their giant buildings?
Chick-fil-A and McDonald's are two of the better ones. They don't give them to just anyone, and are careful about locations, too. To become a franchisee with them ,you have to have a proven record of success and have plenty of money in the bank.
Rule of thumb: the easier it is to obtain a franchise, the less it is worth.
> But quantity can’t obscure what one Chinese energy journal last month referred to as the industry’s “Quality-Gate” scandal. The numbers are damning. In 2018, Chinese manufacturers recalled 135,700 NEVs for a crushing 10.8 percent industrywide recall rate. Already this year, another 23,458 electric vehicles have been recalled.
> Batteries are the most common source of problems. Some don’t perform as advertised. Others drain unusually fast. Still others run dangerously hot. More than 40 NEVs spontaneously combusted in China in 2018.
> Other issues include faulty motors, faulty transmissions, faulty odometers and bad odors (a problem to which Chinese consumers are particularly sensitive). Most notably, according to market research firm J.D. Power, problems are far more common in Chinese NEVs than in traditional Chinese-made cars.
That's interesting with the EV's, a local cab company just went bust and they claimed it was the large repair costs that did them in. That and the closest workshop that could service them was 600 km away. I'm not sure how they would even get the thought of starting a cab service 600 km from the closest garage that could service the cars but that's another question...
The local 7-Eleven also went bust yesterday, together with their other store just a few blocks away. That corner of the city has plenty of other stores so it can't be easy to keep afloat. Town only has about 100 k people. (North Sweden)
Owning a convenience store is a hard proposition