Unishippers Expands Its Franchise Opportunities

Salt Lake City — Unishippers Association, Inc. today announces plans to expand franchise opportunities in dozens of markets across the United States. For the first time in a decade, more than 80 new franchise opportunities are immediately available for sale nationwide. New franchisees will join an extremely successful family of business owners who have been reselling shipping services since 1987 using a proven business model with first-class support.

The Unishippers concept is simple — major shipping carriers such as DHL, Roadway®, UPS Freight® and BAX Global® handle the pick-up, transportation and delivery of customers’ shipments, while Unishippers franchisees provide local customer service and support. By leveraging the combined shipping volume of all its customers, Unishippers gets deeply discounted rates from its carriers, resulting in lower shipping costs for customers. Over the past 20 years, this incredibly successful business model has propelled Unishippers to become the largest reseller of shipping services in the U.S., serving more than 80,000 small to medium-sized businesses, moving nearly 1 million shipments per month and operating in 265 franchise areas.

Considering the tremendous opportunity represented by the ever-growing transportation industry and franchise segment, the Unishippers franchisor has now created new franchise opportunities to capitalize on untapped market potential. New franchises will be sold within existing franchise areas, giving new owners a non-exclusive right to sell Unishippers services in a specific geographic area.

“With our enhanced set of services and strong value proposition, we knew it was time to expand our business by increasing the number of franchises in the country,” says Dan Lockwood, President of Unishippers. “Our annual system-wide revenue is more than $300 million and we’re part of a $60 billion industry — so there is an incredible opportunity out there for our franchise system to grow.”

Lockwood explains that another reason for selling new franchises is to take advantage of Unishippers’ greatly expanded network of carriers. When the first Unishippers franchises were sold, the company essentially offered one product from one carrier. Today, Unishippers has strong partnerships with dozens of carriers and offers a wide variety of transportation services, including domestic express, international express, ground, bulk mail and ocean shipping, as well as air freight, LTL and full-truckload freight shipping.

In addition, Unishippers’ carrier relationships are stronger than ever before. For example, DHL, the company’s small parcel shipment provider, has recently invested $1.2 billion in its infrastructure, resulting in superior reliability and on-time delivery in the express delivery industry. The company’s core group of freight carriers — readily accessible through Unishippers state-of-the-art technology — continues to grow, giving customers even more choices while offering additional promising business opportunities to Unishippers franchisees.

New franchise opportunities include product-specific franchises, which allow owners to focus on small parcel DHL express sales, heavy freight services or both. Prospective franchisees may also purchase an existing franchise from an owner who is ready to sell. Either way, says Lockwood, a franchise opportunity with Unishippers represents a chance to own a non-asset-based business which provides residual income from selling transportation services that prospective customers need and already use.