Multi-Unit Franchises Overtaking Single Units

If you are thinking about starting a franchise or a successful franchisee looking for expanding, then you must know about the latest trends of the franchise industry. One of the trends is getting more and more multi-unit sites than single-unit sites. There are many reasons for that. The franchisors have to spend less time in scouting for qualified candidates to offer their franchise business for sale when they go for multi-unit franchisees. Such franchisees can be existing franchisees looking forward to expand their business or area developers. In both cases, the involvement of the franchisor becomes low while getting substantial increase in revenue due to increase in unit number. Now, let’s check out some specific trends in this multi-unit franchising based on the FRANdata information.

• Single-unit franchisees still control majority of the units (51%), but multi-unit franchisees with 2 to 5 units and franchisees with more than 5 units were fast catching up with 24% and 25% respectively.
• Industry-wise, fast-food franchise opportunities have the maximum number of multi-unit sites. 35% franchisees from this industry are multi-unit franchisees.
• Another trend that is catching up is having units from different sectors. 9% of the multi-unit franchisees have units from different industries while 13% of them are involved in more than one franchise system.
• The multi-unit sites can be of the same company (either different programs or affiliated brands) or unaffiliated brands from different or same sectors.
Besides these statistics from the report, other general trends of multi-unit franchising include:
• Taking up franchises that can be run through remote surveillance like Snap Fitness.
• Taking up franchises that offer two programs, for instance FiltaCool with FiltaFry.
• Taking up franchises that are complementary to each other because they have demand in different seasons like lawn care with seasonal decoration.