Print, mail box rental and shipping business Mail Boxes Etc. has just hit a milestone, opening its 40th Australian retail outlet. And there’s more growth to come, with five stores slated to open before 2021.

CEO Clayton Treloar, who heads up MBE Australia, said franchise enquiries have been on the rise since July, despite the Covid-19 situation. He’s optimistic about further growth.

“It’s been a busy second-half to the year and we’re expecting steady growth over the coming months with a rise in franchise enquiries which has been very positive for us.”

Brand new franchisees Praveen and Sindy have opened the latest store, located in Port Macquarie in the New South Wales mid north coast.

The MBE team has also signed up new franchisees in Fremantle, Western Australia.

A new Melbourne location, as well as another three franchise grants confirmed, are among the locations line up.

James Young, head of franchise sales and development at DC Strategy, said “We’ve seen that all of the hard work over the last six months – even during Covid – has finally built a solid foundation for the MBE network and it’s fantastic to see the new franchises up and running with more locations on the way.”

Earlier this year MBE told Inside Franchise Business the grand plan is to build the Australian franchise network to a sizeable 120 stores within five years.

MBE provides several income streams for franchisees across three different business models, from a full store, to mini store and kiosk.

The kiosk model starts at $50,000, the mini store costs from $80,000.

The B2B services business operates globally – there are now more than 2600 MBE centres worldwide.