Temple & Webster rebrands Wayfair Australia; 7-Eleven franchisees furious after head office promises to change profit share: Midday Roundup

Pure play online homewares retailer Temple & Webster has rebranded its Wayfair Australia as furniture and homewares shopping website, ZIZO.

The rebranding comes just six weeks after Temple & Webster acquired Wayfair Australia.

The website’s new branding went live on Wednesday, with the ZIZO branding set to focus on simplicity, service, and speed.

Mike Henriques, general manager at ZIZO, said in a statement the change is “more than a rebrand”.

“Wayfair Australia established itself as the market leader in product range and customer service. This is more than a rebrand, with ZIZO we are taking the customer experience to the next level, offering Australian shoppers all they want in one place, with the promise that they’ll be looked after while finding what they need” he said.

 “We focus on simplicity, service, and speed to make it easy for everyone.”

7-Eleven franchisees furious after head office promises to change profit share

7-Eleven has promised franchisees it will overhaul its business model at a three-hour long meeting in Sydney yesterday.

Franchisees were told the profit split between their businesses and head office would change – in some instances to a 50-50 profit split.

Earlier this year, SmartCompany revealed how 7-Eleven’s franchising model was “unusual” when compared to other major franchises in Australia.

One 7-Eleven franchisee told Fairfaxthey are outraged by the company’s offer.

“It’s worse than before,” the franchisee said.

“Please do not identify me. I’m scared of the company. They told us we had to accept their offer and that was that. But we cannot go on what they are offering. They are not interested in us, only themselves.”

Boost for shares

Local shares have enjoyed a positive start to the day on the back of strong leads from Wall Street.

Michael McCarthy, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, said in this morning the outlook was encouraging for the local market.

“Major share market indices sliced through key resistance levels in strong trading overnight, breaking the bear spell and suggesting the weakness of August and September is over,” he said.

“The bullish outlook is confirmed by rallies in key industrial commodities. US Fed meeting minutes released overnight gave nothing away, and local investors will turn to today’s home lending data to guide share market action.”

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 0.9%, rising 46.7 points to 5257.1 points at 11.36am AEST. On Thursday the Dow Jones closed up 0.82%, rising 138.46 points to 17050.8 points.