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Mail Boxes Etc: 80 stores planned over five years

Sarah Stowe

Mail Boxes Etc plans 80 stores for Australia over the next five years in an aggressive expansion plan that will bring the store tally to 120.

The massive growth plan will include PostNet stores joining the Mail Boxes Etc (MBE) network after the closure of the former brand.

MBE CEO Clayton Treloar said he is still in talks with a handful of the 16 debadged PostNet franchisees.

Treloar said “MBE is part of a large group of 2,500 locations around the world and with the recent closure of PostNet Australia, each PostNet franchisee had the opportunity to come on board at very little or no cost.”

The first such franchise to join has now transitioned into MBE Broadway in Sydney.

The MBE business model

The business started, as the name suggests, with mail boxes. Today MBE offers several income streams across three different business models: full store, mini store and kiosk.

Treloar said “With the huge increase in pack and ship business across all centres, we are truly a multi revenue business bringing together printing, shipping and mailbox rental to form our business service centre.

“It’s like running three businesses in one, which makes for a profitable little business.”

The hub and spoke model allows store owners to introduce a kiosk as a secondary site. The kiosk has limited capacity and feeds the larger jobs back to the main store.

But it isn’t just an option for existing franchisees.

“It’s very affordable, about $50-$60,000,” said Treloar.

Unlike main stores which operate predominantly through online and phone orders, kiosks need high foot traffic areas in CBD or shopping centre locations.

A mini store costs about $80,000. This smaller, more basic offer than the full MBE store operates in about 40sqm with half the equipment and is suitable for immediate jobs.

“Franchisees are coming with mixed backgrounds. Some are engineers, FIFO works, they tend to be older. There’s no pressure for them to hit big targets and husband and wife teams do very well in our business.”

“We’ll always have retail outlets. Our plan is aggressive but do-able. Our franchise enquiries are up because people are out of work and the entry price point is so affordable.”

Handling the coronavirus crisis

The Monday to Friday business has a strong business to business bent, with a 50/50 international and domestic slant.

“Being a Fedex agency has really helped us with the international shipping,” Treloar said.

The Covid-19 pandemic has given MBE essential business status as it provides B2B and C2B logistics across Australia and around the world.

According to Treloar the logistics field has picked up significant extra business.

“Shipping has gone through the roof and online orders are up about 25 per cent each year.”