THE UPS STORE Franchise Complaints

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• I've been in this system since before there were The UPS Stores, as a Mailboxes, etc. This business started out promising, but has become a complete scam with our VENDOR (UPS) becoming our franchisor. They take more and more from us every day. In the beginning of my store's life cycle, things were pretty good. We did a lot of packing and shipping, with other profit centers like copying and mailbox rentals being a sort of icing on the cake.
  Then our vendor began stealing our shipping customers. I'd say about 2004 was when things started to take a turn for the worse. The amount of prepaid packages, which we are paid a pittance for, began increasing at the expense of packages that were actually paid and shipped through our stores at an alarming rate. In 2008, the amount of prepaid packages began to exceed those that folks paid us to ship, and it's gotten worse.
  Additionally, UPS will be implementing a program whereby people will be able to have things shipped to our stores, again for a pittance, and at the expense of our mailbox holders. We will be held liable for these packages if they are lost for up to $5000 per package. We have no choice but to accept these packages, yet the program is ironically called "My Choice".
  Basically what UPS has done is turn us into indentured servants. We do all of the work that UPS is supposed to do, like deliver packages to residences instead of my store, so that they can lay off more drivers and pay us next to nothing. There are no benefits like insurance for doing this work for them. In fact, we have to pay royalties back to them on the small amounts they do pay us.
  So what is the response from our franchisor? They think we should concentrate on printing. Has anyone looked at the printing industry's numbers lately? Do you realize what all this equipment and software costs us, or how ferocious the competition is? Yeah, when you think of printing I'm sure The UPS Store is the first thing that pops into your head.
  There's more - lots more - but I think you get the idea. Stay away from this franchise at all costs.

• I have been a franchisee for the past 6 years. Initially, I grew sales from 130K per year to 295K last year. However, for the past three years it has been a losing battle. I have seen my house account customers approached by UPS sales agents and offered discounts that I simply could not offer. The lead was provided by my UPS driver based on the high volume of boxes picked up at my store from the same shipper. She even told the agent that she had a house account at the UPS store. What used to be thousands in shipping is now another drop off. The stores lost QVC returns to a first class third party mail vendor costing me at least 15K in annual shipping. The drop offs just keep increasing, and the packing income keeps dropping. Customers are mainfesting their boxes at home and bring the package to me as a drop off and act like they are dong me a favor.....

  Don't even get me started on printing...Standard Register is 20 years behind in technology and 40% higher in cost than the major trade printers that are available. Don't get me wrong, I print a lot...I mean a lot. It's 20% of my business each month. But its sad when you can't make money shipping when you are a UPS store.

  Coroprate efforts are completly out of touch with the pain of what we are really experiencing in the field. How about the 2500 dollar shredders they keep trying to get us to buy....Oh wait YouShredIT LLC just went under....Or how about the 2000 dollar minipakr air pillow machine that is available to us for a limited time only...Or how about the super special price for Adobe CS5 at 1000 dollars as long as 500 of us agree to buy it. (that will never happen) Anyone who knows print already had Adobe CS something....The most recent effort to get us on board with the post office's EDDM program is a complete waste of time. A good corporate mailhouse blows the EDDM program out of the water.

  Over the past 6 years I have put 20-50K each year into the store just to keep it afloat. My life's saving is gone, and we are running out of rope. This month I have made 4100 in sales putting me on track for a 12K month. That is officially 9K short of what we usually do. Before this year I never had a month that was not up compared to the same month the previous year. This year we have seen six (approaching 7) months that have been down compared to last year. So far we have done $9,000 less in sales compared to the same period last year. At that much of a shortage in sales, we will be done before christmas. What makes it even more painful is the knowledge that UPS raised the prices of shipping 8-10 percent in January. So, the cost went up, and our retail sales rate went up, but our revenue is 9K less...Even if we were keeping up with last years sales numbers we would still be at a 10% loss.

  Selling is not an option either considering that the banks are simply not lending. Additionally, if I had a buyer I would owe a 10% sales commission and transfer fees. Since we are more than 6 years old I have to re-carpet the entire store (8K), my computers are now no longer supported either and would require an upgrade, (another 4500). If I hit the 8th year I have to completly recabinet the entire store too (10,000). So, to sell I would be looking at 60,000 in fees and commissions and upgrades.

  It is just easier to shut the doors, strike a flare and walk away.....My best advice, If you have the chance to buy a UPS store.....Don't.

• The UPS store in Cape Girardeau Missour- is the biggest rip-off to all customers. The store is poorly handled by the owner-he does not have clue how to run a business and he is no help to customers. The help is very poor and extremely unfdriendly to the customer. There is Never a notary there yet they advertise there is one there. Lou is not a business minded person thus this store is going down. He does not know what is going on in his store . He is very incapable of being a franchise owner and should not be in business. I hope this store goes out of business--he and the store is a huge rip off to the public

• Thanks for this information which explains the terrible ups store in Greenville, NC.

• Lets not forget about the Used car salesman that they call area franchisees, these
  losers have sold there soles to support the scam that is the UPS store. In Buffalo NY they have 2 retards running the show- dumb and dumber- not sure how they sleep at night- I gues easy money does strange things to people

  Unless you need to lose a lot of money Stay away from the Useless Piece of Ship Store

• Donna Chambers: Before making those comments you need to understand what you're talking about. Unless you've owned a UPS Store and been taken advantage of by the Franchisor UPS, who not only financially rapes every store owner with fees upon fees, upon fees, but makes it impossible for a store to make ANY money at all, would you even have a right to an opinion. Until you've walked in the shoes of a UPS Store owner who is defeated, warn out, who's tried everything possible to survive and keep their doors open, you have some nerve leaving those comments. I'm sure, for one moment thinking as a customer, (and being the devils advocate) can understand frustration when it comes to lack of customer service, and how people can be dissatisfied with not being treated how they feel is appropriate when they are coming into a business and spending their hard earned money there. This I do understand. But what I also understand, is how DEVASTATING the experience is, when all you wanted to do is own your own business, make some money, and enjoy working with your customers each day. But then, when you have no idea how you'll pay the rent each month, or how you'll cover the money that UPS autodrafts constantly out of your bank account on various dates each month, when there's no money left for them to take, the stress level is through the roof. This business model was created ONLY for UPS to make money, and has ruined so many lives, of people looking only for the american dream, and nothing more. Most of the quote un-quote customers that come into the store think they are store customers, when they're shipping pre labelled packages...but they're actually a UPS customer, and the store makes close to nothing on these prepaid packages. The customer coming in doesn't know all that goes on behind the scenes...and the store owner is too distraught to provide the very best customer service, which is their initial goal going into the store. After a short time, and many thousands upon thousands of dollars lost, you too I hope can understand why you've had the experience you described in your post.

• WOW! There sure a lot of disgruntled store owners who have nobody to blame but themselves. The UPS Store is a VERY successful business. My store pulls in $60k a month! Each and every year for the past 23 years has been better than the previous.

• HappyTUPSSowner: Those have been your sales. The real question is...what is your profit? After all the fees and there are many...no matter how high the sales numbers may go, the fees from UPS corporate rise right up right along with them...and siphen the store owners profitability. You can't say you make much in shipping, as drop offs far surpass the # of shipping customers who actually pay the store directly. It truly is not the disgruntled owners that are to blame. They've tried to make it work. It's plain and simple a broken business model that gets worse as time goes on. UPS continues to steal the store's shipping customers...and that's a known fact. So god bless you if you actually believe in this business....and are happy with being treated as a slave for UPS and not as you'd deserve to be treated...as an owner of your own business.

• HappyTUPSSowner-
  23 consecutive years of growth? What's your center number? I'd like to see those numbers for myself. 60K per month is terrific, but also very unusual. It's true, there are a lot of disgruntled store owners out there these days, and some could be spending more time working to expand their potential profit centers and less time complaining about their shrinking ones. But don't write them off completely and say they have no one to blame but themselves. For example, take this classic underhanded technique currently utilized by UPS:
  UPS owns the shipping program iShip, which most, if not all UPS Stores use to process packages. UPS is alerted when a particular customer is shipping 3 or more times per week on average. (These people are a franchisee's bread and butter customers.) UPS then contacts that customer and offers them a slight discount per shipment in order to start an account directly with UPS, bypassing the the UPS Store completely. People have every right to get pisssed off by this kind of business practice.

• I own an independent pack and ship store and feel the pain of the UPS store owners. While I don't have to pay any franchise fees, I do suffer from being a glorified dropoff box for both UPS and FedEx. 75% of outgoing packages in any given day were paid driectly to the carrier. I get NOTHING. Nothing but the liability, the customer questions, the customer expectation to use my supplies for free ("What? You want A DOLLAR for tape????"), the "customer" returning to the store to ask me why something they dropped off didn't get delivered, etc. This year has been terrible so far. Worse than last year, which was bad. Every day I look at the numbers and want to cry. I am trying so hard to sell mailbox rentals now. Plus I have to do all kinds of stupid stuff like money orders and greeting cards, just in the hopes of getting people in the door who MIGHT rent a mailbox. It is very depressing. The retail shipping business is dead. I will be honest: I hope I can sell this store SOON. I feel sorry for the next owner.