Opening a Grocery Store as a Franchisee... (small business, lawyer, organization)

[Rakhi]

My husband is interested in opening a grocery store in the town we live in. We haven't yet signed any Franchise agreement but I was wondering if anyone in this forum has some experience in Franchising.

Its an Asian grocery store we are interested in and we are meeting the franchisor coming Monday. The town has about 70,000 (as per govt records) people out of which good 5000 people would be Asians (specifically Indian, Srilankan and Pakistani).

Of course I would not quit my job but I am going to be a co-signer.
We are going to hire a lawyer and an accountant but I would really appreciate if anyone can give ANY advise as how its going to be like for us. Has anyone here any experience in running a store?

[GloryB]

I found this link online and it seems to have lots of great information you can use on it:
Progressive Grocer- Find Supermarket Industry News & Grocery Store News

Good luck to you and your family business!!

[Dave1215]

Be sure to get their Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC)!!! if not familiar with that see this link: Franchise Registration And Disclosure Guidelines (http://www.nasaa.org/industry___regulatory_resources/uniform_forms/3697.cfm - broken link)

Have your good business attorney, CPA, and banker all review it with you along with your business plan.

There is very high risk with a franchise system if they don't do it right. Buyer Beware... on the flip side, franchising can be a great way for someone to get into business, if the franchisee is legit and will be in business for the long haul.

Do your diligence up front. If you are new to business it might be worthwhile checking your local SBA office and see if they have a SCORE counselor (retired executives working with SBA to help small businesses - fantastic organization).

SCORE: http://www.score.org/index.html
SBA: http://www.sba.gov/ (broken link)

[Rakhi]

Great information! Thank you both of you.