In Search Of More Muscle

Wall Street Journal:

Franchising is often seen as a safer business model than starting up from scratch. Yet failure is a real possibility, even among the most popular franchises.

Case in point: Curves International Inc. Once among the fastest-growing franchises in the world, the women’s fitness-club chain now finds itself rapidly shrinking. Last year 833 clubs, or 16% of the chain’s domestic presence, closed across the U.S., turning what many franchisees thought would be comfortable incomes and retirement nest eggs into money pits.

Curves now has about 4,000 U.S. locations—half the number at its zenith in 2005. That dramatic decline, rare in America’s franchising annals, reflects a number of factors coming to a head at the same time. More.

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