May 14, 2022 12:07 PM
828 Views
I am running franchisee of Firstcry.com for last 3.5 years at Chinchwad, Pune. I am doing other businesses for last 18 years. But taking a franchisee of firstcry.com is the biggest mistake of my life because of following reasons:
Before opening of our store, Initial investment was told around 50 Lakh by their employees. My initial investment went to Rs. 97 Lakh. Before opening, profit was told as 35%. But actual profit is 18-25% max. Since beginning, my store is in loss. My store location had been selected by Firstcry employee only and initial business projections given by them was of Rs. 15Lakh/month. In the first month(before 3.5 yrs) I did a business of 5.5 Lakh only. My current business is also very low i.e. around Rs. 3 Lakh. Profit is Rs. 75000 and expenses are Rs. 3.25Lakh. I am investing more than Rs. 2.5 Lakh per month on running cost. Till date, my total investment goes to Rs. 1.75 Cr. Within next few months, my total investment will go up to Rs. 2 Cr. But they don’t care it. If your store is in loss, they will leave it and if your store makes more profit, they will open another store nearby. They don’t disclose most of the policies before opening of store. After opening of the store, we can’t do anything. We have to purchase the material continuously without fail and run the store anyhow. Otherwise, they will debit charges.
Our main competitor is the Firstcry company only(online offers). They are regularly giving around 50% discount online. Hence Customers are not buying from us as they are getting same product online(Firstcry.com) at lower cost.
Earlier they had committed me that ‘we will share 50% of the total advertising cost’. I have spent 8.5Lakh on advertising. But Company has given me share of Rs. 1.4Lakh only. Initially, when my business was low, I asked Firstcry executive about low business as location and other things were decided by them only. But instead of giving any answer, sales ideas and moral support; they were blaming us and asking questions to me. Even after investing Rs. 1 Cr, we have to answer their questions. Many times, feels like I am not be the owner of my store. One of the employees is very egoistic and short tempered. We were afraid of writing any mail to him. They don’t respect and don’t care franchisee.
Within 3-4 months after opening of my store, I wanted to close my store and requested Company to take back the material. They have not taken material back also. I have to run store anyways. I will suggest everyone before finalising franchisee, please visit at least 10 stores and ask in details. In first visit, you may not find the truth because everybody is under pressure of Company. In last 2 years, I have visited more than 20 franchisees and very surprised; nobody is satisfied with Firstcry(those who are doing good business and low business franchisee also). I am also surprised when I got to know that more than 200 of franchisees are closed till date because of Company Policies and their attitude towards franchisee. In Pune only, 4 franchisees are closed till now. They are continuously searching for new franchisees only and don’t care about old outlets.
Every month they are introducing new policies in favour of Company. All the franchisee’s must follow their new policies(good or bad) in any case. Now they are giving franchisee to anybody who is having cash of Rs. 1 Cr. There are around 20 Franchisees of Firstcry and 6-7 franchisees of Babyhug(Firstcry’s own brand) in Pune. After sales service of Babyhug is very bad. We are regularly facing big problems with our Service team as they are not offering services on time and customers are blaming us. Please check their reviews on mouthshut.com(total 10500 reviews). They got only 2 rating out 5
I lost everything in this last 3.5 years. I became weak in terms of financial, mental and physical health. Even My CIBIL score has been reduced by 80 points. Currently, I don’t have funds to run franchisee. Now they are asking me to take loan again and shift the store and order new stock at new location which is not possible for me. Hence, I am requesting everyone, please don’t invest your hard-earned money in Firstcry. I will suggest to make FD if you want to invest money & have a peace of mind if don’t have any other option in business. Otherwise, you will have to pay for it and surely feel sorry in future.
Deepak B Gite
9822919998
