FedEx Kinko's/FedEx Office

[storewanderer]

I noticed one in Reno, NV was missing signs on Friday night. I drove by again today and it was still missing signs, but there appeared to be people inside. I don't know if it has closed or they are finally switching signs. Normally when signs get switched out you remove the old signs and put the new signs up at the same time. Or you put a banner up if there is going to be some kind of a time gap. Don't they sell/make banners? How hard would it be?

[Alpha8472]

Most companies outsource the store signage work to local contractors. For example, when Chase wanted to change the signs on Washington Mutual branches they hired a company that took care of the entire re-signage process. The outside company was responsible for getting sign permits from various municipalities as well as ordering new signs. The permanent signs took weeks to assemble, so in the meantime the outside company was also responsible for buying and putting up temporary banners after the old signs were removed. When you are dealing with hundreds of signs and hundreds of branches, it is very difficult to keep up with every single sign. Some locations might end up without a sign for a short period of time before the sign making company can deliver the new sign.

Putting up new signs on a store means dealing with several different companies that all work on a different schedule. There are people who remove the old signs, sign makers, and people who install the new signs. FedEx pays the outside company for the entire resigning process. Apparently, the outside company is not doing a good job and left the store sign-less for a period of time. Certain cities require permits for new signs and they also require permits for temporary tarp or plastic signs. For example, temporary signs cannot be left up over a certain number of days.

Often the people who are responsible for choosing the size of the sign are only given a few minutes to scope out the store and then they have to be driving off to the next location. Mistakes can be made and you might end up with an incorrectly sized sign. I am sure you have seen stores with signs that too small or too large for a certain store.

[storewanderer]

Okay, I was by this location and I saw they have new FedEx Office signs up.

So they were without signs for about a week.

It seems to me they could have removed the "Kinko's" part of the sign and replaced with "Office" rather than replacing the entire sign but what do I know? This would have been cheaper and requried less labor. Maybe they got a deal on a bulk order of a bunch of same size signs then again FedEx has already changed signs once so they should have probably had a bulk order of a bunch of same size signs then.

Were there any location with the old Kinkos signage and no FedEx?

[Brian Lutz]

I'm seeing FedEx Office signs replacing the old Kinko's signs on a number of locations in around Seattle as well. Not all have changed yet, but the changeover is definitely happening.

[Alpha8472]

When signs are replaced, they have to replace the entire thing at once. The sign is constructed as one unified electrical piece. You can't just chop off part of the sign. It won't light up. Each sign is custom made for each store in order to comply with the absurd sign ordinances for each city. They don't make signs in bulk. There is no reusable mold or mass production factory. It is a group of employees working on one sign at a time and each one is custom according to design specifications. This is why resigning is such a long process. If it were possible I am sure FedEx would want all of the signs done in one day, but that is not practical.

[tesg]

Our local store got its sign changed last week.

I think they're smaller too.

[greenfalcon]

Today, in front of a FedEx Office in south Sacramento, I saw a professionally printed sandwich board sign that read "Kinko's Inside". I thought they were trying to kill off the Kinko's name.

[Alpha8472]

The corporate office did everything it could to eliminate the Kinko's name, however the employees probably were resistant. I can imagine tons of people walking in everyday asking "Is this Kinko's?" It would probably be so annoying. The employees probably just decided to put up a sign to save themselves the questioning. Also, the employees probably realize that the Kinko's name is what draws people to the store. Many people have no idea what services a FedEx Office store would offer.

[storewanderer]

I noticed a new sign in the window tonight. It says, "Kinko's Inside."

I guess the name change caused so much confusion..

[wrallen99]

Fedex's strategy must be to build business for their shipping business, because as everyone is saying, they have a lot fewer customers that use the instore services.

You could tell how things were going to go when they raised prices on computer use time right after the buyout. This cut back many customers, plus the fact that a lot more people have their own Internet access these days.

Also, not being open 24 hours is a big loss. It was always good to be able to drop in in the middle of the night when things were slow to do a big copy job or use the computers. It seemed like they used to do their big print jobs during these times, so it wasn't like the staff didn't have anything to do this late.