Unishippers Leads Franchise Times Top 400 Shipping Category in Sales Growth

Franchise Times
By Joe Halpern
October 29, 2025

While many brands that specialize in printing and shipping services have struggled to achieve consistent growth in recent years, Minuteman Press continues to deliver impressive sales results.

The Farmingdale, New York-based company that turned 52 this year moved up 12 spots to No. 122 on the Franchise Times Top 400 with a 9.3 percent sales increase to finish 2024 with $637 million in total revenue. The Top 400 list is an exclusive ranking of the top franchise brands by system sales.

Minuteman’s increase is double that of the growth achieved by its closest competitors that also specialize in printing, graphics and signs. No. 309 SpeedPro and No. 254 Sir Speedy Print Signs Marketing saw sales growth of 4.6 and 4.3 percent, respectively. No. 182 InXpress, meanwhile, increased sales by 3.8 percent.

Overall, the printing and shipping category posted a modest 2.7 percent sales increase to $7.6 billion. It also managed to eke out 1.9 percent unit growth to finish the year with 9,703 total units for the category’s 11 brands.

Minuteman Press International President Nick Titus credited its franchisees and corporate team with the company’s sales success and said that opening the 1,000th franchise location at the start of 2025 was a major milestone for the company.

“This is a huge accomplishment that could not have been done without the dedication of our franchise owners and the hard work of our regional teams as well as the staff at world HQ,” he said. “With all of us working together, we achieved new sales records in 2024 and I am excited for us to continue to build our momentum. It is a real honor to support our franchise owners across the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and South Africa.”

Some printing, graphics and signs franchises didn’t fare as well in 2024. Some of the brands that saw sales decreases in 2024 included No. 153 Signarama, No. 95 Fastsigns and No. 223 Allegra Marketing Print Mail. Meanwhile, sales at No. 233 Image360 increased by just 0.7 percent with a unit count decrease of 0.4 percent.

The largest shipping franchisor by far is The UPS Store, which landed at No. 30 for the second straight year.

It grew its sales by 2.4 percent to $3.89 billion in 2024. It also increased its unit count by 2.8 percent to finish the year with 5,776 locations in the United States and Canada. The San Diego-based company is in the process of updating its stores with a contemporary, open-concept design, featuring brighter colors, improved lighting and a more streamlined customer experience. It has also rolled out a new digital platform and 24/7 smart lockers for package pickup and self-serve printers.

No. 99 Unishippers led the shipping and packaging subcategory in terms of sales growth, reporting a 7.3 percent increase to $758 million last year. Up 10 spots on the list, that rise comes despite closing four locations to end 2024 with 206 locations. Unishippers was founded in 1987 and merged with Worldwide Express in 2017. It now operates within the WWEX Group family of brands, which also includes technology-enabled, third-party logistics provider GlobalTranz. It continues to offer shipping and logistics services to businesses.

Dustin Wesley, who oversees franchise development for Unishippers, said a big reason why his company was able to rebound from a down year in 2023 to post its best results in years was paying more attention to internal tracking and sharing those results often throughout the system. He said it has led to more franchisee accountability that has in turn increased unit productivity and sales.

“We found that sharing the results with our franchisees every single week to see where they stack up against their peers has really helped our bottom line,” Wesley said. “Everyone can see what everyone is doing and it helps keep everyone on track.”

Publish Date: 11/03/2025