Subway War With Franchises Heats Up

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Subway War With Franchises Heats Up

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Subway’s management believes that among the best ways to revive flagging sales is to cut prices. This, in turn, will hurt the finances of its franchise owners. The tension between the corporation and these outlet owners has worsened again.

According to The New York Post, the Subway price cuts will occur early in 2020. They almost certainly will trigger lower margins for franchise owners, if not losses. An example of one price cut is the deep cleaving of the six-inch “Oven Roasted Chicken,” which will drop from $4.25 to a gut-churning price of $2.99.

Subway closed 1,108 stores in 2018, the last year for which solid data is available. Most experts believe it overexpanded. Others believe it came under more pressure from McDonald’s and other large fast-food chains. Either way, franchise owners in many locations face bleak futures. Subway could be among retailers closing the most stores this year.

The plan is part of the turnaround strategy of new CEO John Chidsey. He faces tension over lease requirements the company has imposed on franchise owners. The tension has heated up enough that there has been at least one lawsuit between the two sides. It is hard to imagine a worse situation than a battle between a company and those who sell its products. Subway has no stores. All of its sales come via franchises.

Chidsey is about to break one of the cardinal rules of business. It is very hard to cut costs deeply and make up the loss of margins via higher revenue.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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