As Pack & Send celebrates two decades in business we look back at what has driven the business. In this article written five years ago, Domini Stuart writes about how Pack & Send translates the vision of getting anything anywhere into practice.
ANYTHING, ANYWHERE
From a single store which opened in 1993, Pack & Send has developed into a network of over 90 outlets across every state in Australia. In July 2008 the business took its first step towards a global presence by signing international master franchise agreements in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
“Over the past 10 years a relatively high proportion of Pack & Send’s freight jobs have involved export to the UK and New Zealand, so it was only natural for us to extend the development of our retail network into these countries,” says Michael Paul, founder and CEO.
“Our vision is to establish a global footprint of Pack & Send stores; we have registered our trademark in over 50 countries throughout the world.”
Pack & Send stores are designed to be the shopfront of the logistics industry. Customers, including businesses of all sizes, eBay buyers and sellers, tourists and householders, can either drop off their items or parcels to a local store or have them collected from their home or office. Pack & Send packages them if required then organises delivery to any destination in the world.
“Our freight solutions range from sending a 20 gram letter to a one tonne consignment,” says Paul. “We also offer over 30 different freight services which enable us to deliver to any destination on the planet. We sell packaging supplies and can custom pack items of any size or weight — we are the industry leader when it comes to handling goods that are fragile, large, awkward and valuable.”
THE NO LIMITS APPROACH
Paul believes there are no limits to the success that can be achieved when a motivated team is totally focused on the customer. A system known as Store Connect supports this philosophy — it enables individual franchisees to work together to accomplish tasks that might otherwise be impossible. Some of their success stories have been brought together in a book, No Limits — true stories about going the extra mile.
Below: the very first Pack & Send store opens with Neville and Gaby Kennard
Typical examples include a customer who wanted a fragile ornament picked up at 10.00am and delivered to Perth by 5.00pm on the same day; one who needed PCs, monitors, printers, fax machines and servers to be packed and returned to one location from a dozen sites across Australia; and another who wanted a shipment of display equipment to be packed and delivered to an exhibition event venue in a different state then packed and returned a week later.
The new stores in New Zealand and United Kingdom are the first stages in a plan to make Store Connect solutions available internationally. Paul’s long-term vision is to connect the world — and he believes that continuing changes in the logistics industry are playing to the company’s strength.
“More goods are being moved than ever before,” he says. “The growth of trading through online sites such as eBay has been phenomenal. Hundreds of millions of products and goods are bought and sold on eBay alone every year and all those goods need to be packed and shipped.
“The future is very exciting for logistics companies with the necessary resources and business systems to take advantage of these changes. Pack & Send caters for this new demand — over the past 15 years we have carved out a strong niche market position and the long-term industry fundamentals are very favourable to our business model.
“Our unique retail packaging and freight forwarding services are simply giving the market more convenient and personalised solutions to move things around the world.”
FINDING FRANCHISEES
As with many fast-growing franchises, Pack & Send’s biggest challenge is finding enough quality franchisees to establish stores in strategic locations.
Below: Michael Paul, celebrating an FCA awards win
“In many areas of Australia we have more customers than we can service with our current network of stores,” Paul continues. “This can have a deleterious affect on the brand. We have recently embarked on a strategy to expand our numbers of company-owned stores to meet this demand.”
“Pack & Send franchisees have experienced excellent income and capital appreciation benefits. High profit returns have resulted in a growing trend of franchisees acquiring their second, third or fourth stores. [In 2009] Over 25 per cent of the Pack & Send network is under multi-store ownership.”
Pack & Send has identified 17 key attributes to franchisee success and all franchisee candidates are rated against these criteria. They include computer literacy, family and social support, service orientation, drive for success, sales orientation, openness to growth, communication skills and an optimistic outlook.
“We believe the cornerstone of our success is the team of people behind our brand,” says Paul. “These are the franchisees who have enthusiastically embraced our ‘no limits’ culture with a commitment to ‘going the extra mile’ for their customers.”