From reading some Franchise rants on forums a couple years back, I think franchisee's (Snap-on) paid 32% under full retain on most items. I don't know if tool boxes fall under the same markup.
I really love tools (especially Snap-on) and looked on the internet for information about being a franchisee. After reading a lot of horror stories from franchisee's and ex-franchisee's, from all three major brands (Snap-on, Mac and Matco), I decided it would not be worth it for me.
That's where I saw it posted more than once that Snap-on franchisee's paid 32% less than full retail.
Franchisee's owners that aren't lucky enough to get a good "List of Calls" with good customers that buy often and pay their payment, usually fail pretty quickly. Initial start-up cost for a franchisee is upwards of $250k for a new fully stocked truck. A very large investment and most end up financing the majority of that in the beginning, therefore setting themselves up for failure. The big 3 are bad to give you bad area's (dead beats and slow sale areas), ship product you didn't order weekly if they don't think you are selling enough and just yank you around in general.
If you notice in the posts on this forum, you see where one area talks about how good one franchise is, but the other one *****. The Matco guy rocks, the Snap-on guy is a ****! Or it is the other way around.
The guy that is a **** usually ends up failing and that company recycles that route to a new guy who has a uphill battle to try and establish a good customer base.
I've even heard stories where people took a "bad route", finally turned it into a "good route" that was profitable and then that company took "good, buying, paying customers" from their "List of Calls", gave it to another franchisee and stuck the original guy with more "bad, dead beat, non-buying customers".
Many have debated that the big 3 set their franchisee's up for failure on purpose as it made them money.
Snap-on, Mac and Matco are apparently real ****** to their franchisee's.
If dude wants to pay $300 over dealer cost on a tool box, he'd probably have to spent a ton of money with that franchisee, or that franchisee would have to be on his way to loosing his distributorship. That or be married to his sister or something. I don't think a successful franchisee would sell that cheap. Just sounds unrealistic.
Just my opinion.
And FYI, it is technically against their agreement to sell to someone not on their "List of Calls". The franchisee has to ask Snap-on if they can add you to their list. Meaning that technically it has to be approved before he can sell you anything.
You can only be on one list and you can't pick and choose which franchisee you want to buy from. You get the one that is closest to you unless someone can work some magic for you.
You might have a hard time finding a franchisee in another area that will sell to you. It's possible you'd need to have a friend on that franchisee's route and have your friend work the deal.
I'm sure their are some franchisee's that will sell anything to anyone as long as it is a cash sell, but that isn't every franchisee.
Being a special order tool box, that might be a problem. Not quite as simple as selling you something that is already on the truck or isn't "special order".
Cornwell is the only company that gives their franchisee an "area". He can sell to whomever he wants to within his area and can sell to people outside of his area as long as "your area" doesn't already have a Cornwell franchisee.
