Will Auctioning4U Save the eBay Drop Off Franchise?
May 26, 2007 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
Congratulations to Christian Braun & Auctioning4u on their purchase, earlier this month, of the assets of iSold it UK. Up to 30 of iSold It’s existing franchisees, based all over the UK, are being invited to transfer their businesses to the Auctioning4u brand.
Christian recently left a message on Franchise Pick:
We have bought the UK iSold It franchisee database (see http://www.auctioning4u.co.uk/news/iSold_It_UK) and are in discussions with a number of former Zees. Our business model is substantially different from iSold It and all other franchisors we have come across.
Best Regards,
Christian Braun
CEO
Auctioning4u
iSold it UK is the sixth acquisition for Auctioning4u after its purchase of rivals Auctionicity in July 05, Auction Partner in April 05,Trading Nation in August 06, Sell It Shack in Sept 06 and most recently Recycle UR Stuff in Feb 07. To date Auctioning4u has raised £4 million from angel investment and venture capital.
Besides having a cool pink van, how is Auctioning4u different? Unlike iSold It, Auctioning4u processes and fulfills all orders centrally at their 40,000 square foot location. According to the company, 65 full time listers – all experts in their own field including: fashion, electronics and collectables – as well as a dedicated photography department make the process quicker and more efficiently. The company claims that the operational efficiency of this model makes eBay reselling viable and profitable – in contrast to having hundreds of stores doing all the work themselves which, according to COO Christopher Caruck, “just cannot work economically.”
So what do franchisees do? As part of their Territory Partners program, they’ll “only need 600 – 700 square feet and one employee – sometimes all they need is a van!’ ” according to Caruk. Braun says they could have the opportunity “to manage a number of the hundreds of charity shops we work with, build a network of shop-in-shop outlets and operate an arm of our highly successful home collection service.”
So, if I get this right… franchisees would concentrate on marketing, acquiring the stuff to sell and maintaining customer relations on the local level. They’d be free from listing, processing and fulfilling orders, which would be done by the central fulfillment center. They’d split revenue in some way.
Could this be done in the U.S.? Before I get lectured on the difference in geographical size between the U.K. and the U.S., consider that this is not an idea without precedent. Consider dry-cleaning drop-off businesses. Few local dry cleaners have plants on premise anymore. Most are drop-off stores that bring their clothes to a central cleaning facility that their competitors might be using, too. The dry-cleaning-to-your-door franchises that have popped up all operate under the same model Auctioning4u is proposing. Could it work for the drop-off stores here? Could regional fulfillment centers service all the drop-off stores in a single market?
Could Auctioning4u’s centralized approach work for the benefit of the iSold It UK franchisees? Could regional, centralized processing work for eBay Drop-off franchises in the US? Could their website be any more pink? Leave a comment! Share your thoughts!
Chance:
You’re such the Mom. Of course I was indulging in some childish Hugh-baiting. I do that when I’m trying to keep my temper from flaring. Usually it works. And it did.
I figured that this now-irrelevant post would be the place to do it since I didn’t think anyone but Hugh was following it. A4U is a dead parrot. An ex-parrot. It has ceased to be. They only had 2 franchises and they left amiably. This Clockwork Orange company or whatever it is bought A4U, then sold it, then died? What’s that got to do with drop-off franchisees losing their savings & homes? It’s just Hugh whining because he got fired from a company that was later owned for a while by a company that’s going bankrupt?
Then he calls me a “worm” and accuses me of censorship for not letting him post other people’s phone numbers publicly? I messed with him rather than blasting him.
It’s ironic that this is the only post I ever closed, and it was because of Hugh. I get a kick out of him, and would love to hoist a few pints with him. But he plays victim on a site filled with real victims. I’ve offered to build him his own blog, but he’d rather sleep on others’ couches and then complain about the accomodations.
Chance, you’re exactly right about what’s important.
Today I was alternating between Hugh’s nonsense and a real, serious issue involving a person about to wire their $40K life savings into what is likely a black hole and three years of depression and aggravation. Read the comments and you’ll see what I mean:
Cuppy’s Coffee, Elite Manufacturing Franchise Complaint on Rip-off Report
Some days it’s really hard to see the crap people will do to other people in order to take their money. It’s sickening. This is one of those days. I apologize to Hugh for not enabling him to harrass some workers because they didn’t get the money for their toaster that sold on eBay.
Sean, I completely understand. I spent more than two hours on the phone yesterday explaining everything that is already written out here on why NOT to buy one of these crappy franchises from another failing franchisee. Then I spent another hour listening to an exfranchise who’s wife just died last week (in the midst of bankruptcy, threats, and Lord knows what else). So yes Sean, Mom’s hate to see bickering , but sometimes the best solution is to just let the kids fight it out and be ready with the bandaids.
As for the coffee franchise, seems there’s one more BAD franchisor out here to add to the list of “Why doesn’t someone do something?” BELIEVE ME, WE ARE TRYING! Thanks to you Sean for having these blogs – they are a start!
Hugh, you are so right !!! But this is a bit too late. Comment: good ideas sometimes come from bad people.
Hi from France,
Do you know where i can find articles or informations about any drop off store finally lose in justice ? or have been sentenced ?
It’s too have more arguments in court with my french attorney. Thanks a lot for your help.
Hi from France,
Do you know where i can find articles or informations about any drop off store finally lose in justice ? or have been sentenced ?
It’s too have more arguments in court with my french attorney. Thanks a lot for your help !!
(Don’t worry Sean I won’t post again but I believe this is a valid loose-end tying exercise)
Like Debbie, like Ken Sully it would appear that Mr. Christian Braun is a serial offender…
He has let it be known that some time after 11 a.m. tomorrow, he will be launching his new dot.com at the ‘Plastic Warrior’ Toy Soldier show.
He has asked all mutual acquaintances not to tell me the name of it and as that has been honoured – even by me telling one mutual friend not to tell me when he was about to – I can only report that as I hinted in my first post nearly a year ago; “If he hadn’t recognised that fact he wouldn’t be putting so much effort into Toymart, his pet (single issue) project” it is a toy’s only site. One wonders how he expects to keep it a secret from me when announcing it at a show he knows I’m attending!!!!
There are a few points raised by this development (before the ink has properly dried on the debt-returns from his old business), not least being if you are still owed money or goods by Auctioning4clocks-works or whatever it ended up calling itself, you might like to come down to the Queen Charlotte Halls, Richmond, Surrey (end of the District Line tube/metro), after 11 for a refund in person!! I’ll be wearing a Tuskers Beer T-Shirt in a fetching Salmon-pink and will be only too delighted to point him out to you, if he’s still in the building!!!
Of more interest are the following two points, First the Domain name is rumoured to have cost between 5 and 8 £k, likewise if you Google any of the company names connected with the final death throws of A4U, you find a visible dearth of ‘hits’, now I’m no expert in the inner workings of Google Algorithms but I think it costs a lot of money to suppress that much stuff? So within months of burning more than 4 million quid (yeh, that’s 8 million dollars give or take a few bills), he’s got a new bankroll!!
It confirms what others and myself have said in these pages and the iSold -It and Snappy threads; There’s one born every minute, and just as many work in banking as in street-sweeping. But then; with every country in the developed world having at least one Bank on it’s knees and a couple more desperately ‘restructuring’ in the last few months, there can’t be many people left who haven’t realised that.
Another minor point, this new site is apparently an Ad-link driven vehicle, disguised as a collectables/toy-wiki. Well there are only (but also…’already’) three toy-wiki’s on Google, one; the toy arm of THE Wikipedia, which would probably be described by CB’s MBA tutors as having ‘an unassailable position in the marketplace’, the other were both “last updated” in 2006, so real promise there then?
I’m not a prophet, but neither am I a fool, I just fall for the snake-oil salesman’s charm occasionally…I will close with the words I closed with on July 4th last year; “Don’t give up hope, but steer clear of the big boys, they will eventually be found in hell somewhere between equity investors and double-glassing salesmen!!!”
Hugh this just lends more proof that those looking into owning a franchise or any business, need to do their research on the company officers, investors, and related people. These guys go from one company to another, just like Wetzel (founder of isoldit) has recently invested $$$ (he said he didn’t have at isi) into another franchise for yogurt! All we can do is give others the information and tools to find the facts.
Chance wrote: …those looking into owning a franchise or any business, need to do their research on the company officers, investors, and related people. These guys go from one company to another…
Very, very valid and important point.
Why do they do it over and over? Because they get away with it. Every one of the most maligned franchisors here have refined their approach with other bankrupt franchises and will do it again. It just works too well for them not to.
Hugh and I just disagree about whether Christian Braun belongs in that group. I believe he doesn’t since he stopped selling franchises when it wasn’t working; Hugh thinks he does for reasons well-documented in this and other threads.
I think we all can agree that attendees of tomorrow’s ‘Plastic Warrior’ Toy Soldier show who were planning to wear a salmon-pink Tuskers Beer T-Shirt would be well-advised to consider a change of wardrobe for their personal safety. (Just in case the plastic bullets start to fly.)
Now let’s pray CB’s new venture does not involve franchising…
Hopefully http://www.ToyCollector.com isn’t his big announcement, since it’s on CB’s LinkedIn profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/christianbraun
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with what you said.
The serial offenders are experts at operating under cover of government regulation and surviving their “ventures” in the marketplace. Apparently it is all legal, if not fair and moral.
Their franchisees, their resources, pay the hard price of failure while they just move on to bigger ventures, as witness the P&G venture into franchising car washes headed by none other than James Amos, as written about recently on Blue Mau Mau.
I thought CB was an honorable man, also, when he stopped selling the failing franchise.