Franchise Failure: Figuring Out Who and What is to Blame?

• Encroachment - In and of itself encroachment is a very dangerous and serious issue for franchisees but in Ms. Reisman's situation she said "a competing Rita's opened five miles away".  The likelihood that a small quick service franchise, such as Rita's - a franchise that sells ice cream and ices, is very low.  Most people do not travel five miles for quick service franchises so five miles should be a far enough distance to not cause encroachment for this type of franchise.
  
• Time Consuming Promotions - While it may be true that promotions are time consuming there is an upside to promoting and marketing and that is it shows that your franchisor is interested in marketing your product to help generate business.  While the down side may be that it is time consuming to stand outside of local stores to hand out information about your franchise location there is always other ways to go about handing out the promotion papers  as Mr. Internicola suggests, such as hiring a few teenagers to help you out for the day. 
• Product Introductions - Product introductions can definitely put cause franchisees to have an excess of products that aren't very popular and when it is mandatory that you sell them (such as in Ms. Reisman's case where she has to have a new product for at least 24 days) it may result in you losing money on the not so popular products that are introduced.  While this does cost the franchisee money it should not be causing the franchise location to go under.  Also, there could also be a suggestion that the franchisor should do a royalty adjustment for products that do not sell much during the mandatory promotional period.