actually, i'm in NC. they must have sliced color copy prices in half after i left. we still had .89 per impression which is ridiculous. they had one promotion for one month at .49 which is were it should be for any retail shop that can control waste and negotiate advantageous machine contracts. machine costs were my biggest complaint from an operational standpoint. with a footprint so huge, to not get better leases always astounded me.

Never had a copy job done right? I would think the problem might be your instructions, but the customer is never wrong.

Seriously, fuck Kinko's.

It does make sense though... Aside from FedEx Express, every single other branch of the company (Ground, Home Delivery, Customer Critical, Critical Inventory Logistics, Freight, etc etc etc) are all companies that FedEx bought out and completely changed the name of. It was only time before they did it with Kinko's too.

I was better off doing last-minute orders myself than entrusting them to the retards and stoners that remained. It got to the point where my company now has its own in-house Kinko's-style printing office, just so we can have some degree of quality control.

And two of my former Kinko's coworkers are in that department.

@hypoxia: I have never, in my life, had a Kinkos complete a large copy job correctly. Never. Never ever. Not once - ever. Never. Under any circumstances. Not to belabor the point, but they have never, ever, ever gotten it right. Never.

I would wager that ever living person in the US knows what Kinkos is. And FedEx is going to murder the brand. What a bunch of fools. This reminds me of when Honda (Acura) killed the Legend. The reasoning was that it was too popular and better known than the Acura brand, so they murdered it and came up with the "RL" replacement - which, 15 years later, is as bland and anonymous as it was on day 1.

Well actually.. If you want the total it goes like this.

FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx Custom Critical, FedEx LTL (lighter than truck load), FedEx Trade Networks, FedEx Office & Print Centers (or FedEx Office) FedEx Freight, FedEx Services, FedEx Supply Chain Services (and then there's a lot of companies within some of those).

but who's counting?

I hate it personally.. but whatever..

shame.

Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Single Copy, who can't understand that $.09 on your credit card used at a SELF-SERVICE COPIER doesn't cost YOU anything extra; you're not who we make our money from, and you should indeed go to the library to make your copies.

I for one look forward to the fading of a once-pioneering brand that has become stigmatized as a punchline (ref. TopCopy and Replica). FedEx Office indeed states more broadly and professionally our service and retail offerings. For you ex-college students waxing longingly of late nights at our computers, every kid has a laptop now...being open all night is largely a ridiculous relic, almost completely unnecessary, not to mention extremely un-green.

You may joke about our collective competence, but don't underestimate the effect of this name change on employees like me who are a little less embarrassed to say where we work. Way to go Brian!

They expanded to office products to make up for the lost revenue from slicing color copy prices in half.

@mgy: is that mitch hedburg?

I sense that you're strategic alignment is not in check either!

I think it depends on how much money they dump into rebranding it, granted everyone knew kinko's, and have gotten to know FedExKinkos (yeah, its a mouthful), but I think eventually they'll learn that FedEx Office is the same thing (after they pump out a couple million in advertising). Look at Mailboxes Etc and UPS (I know Mailboxes Etc doesn't have nearly the name recognition as Kinkos, but still).

You're in violation of the Standards of Conduct :)

At least the AT&T->Cingular->AT&T change was done to get around the regulators.

Lots of us already have a place to make copies, print flyers, mail packages, use office supplies, check personal email/internet, and make color prints (when no one is around)

Its called work.

On a personal level I don't approve of the name change at all, nor do any of the employees I've spoken with so far. It was quite a surprise. The branding is just too strong. However, FEK has made some AMAZING changes in the last few years that have seriously affected my life for the better, and they are really focusing now on not only improving the customer's experience but improving what they offer to their employees, so this makes me very curious as to where this branding shift will lead. You're absolutely right on the brand equity.

The major, MAJOR advantages that FEK has that I can't see an independent printer ever competing with are the massive carbon footprint reduction and the efforts to become more of a project manager for the clients rather than just a print place. Case in point:

Suppose you're flying to Dallas for some sort of convention or presentation. Do you really want to cart all your printed materials on the plane and deal with the extra baggage cost and parcels? Do you really want to go to four different stores to get your business cards, your presentation folios, your table displays, and your branded trinkets?

Doubtful. So what you do is get to place your order for everything in ONE store and have that store arrange for it to be wherever you need it to be, and that is usually complimentary. I do it every day for my clients. I create the order, negotiate the price, create proofs which the customer approves, and then I electronically transmit the order to ANY FEK in the county, and they then are accountable to ME. My client has ONE person they can contact for everything. I am essentially their project manager. I make sure their order is waiting at the convention center, or at the hotel, or wherever else they need it to be. If you take a moment to consider how many stores across the country there are and how many people actually need these services, we are the ONLY company in the country that can do this.

Think of the carbon footprint reduction by not actually shipping paper across the country. Think of the branding consistency that I can provide my client whether it's at this store or at the store in Dallas. Think of how much money I just saved them in shipping and lugging stuff around.

And that's just the start. I could go on all day but no one wants to hear it, I know. It's just that there's so much more that FEK offers than crappy service. ;)

Still, I'm not sure if it's worth throwing away Kinko's enormous brand equity, nor do I know if people will ever associate FedEx with office services. For everyday paper stuff, most SOHOs have printers and copiers that fit their needs. For bigger jobs, I'd prefer to go to a dedicated print shop. I realize FedEx Office is going to have fancy online print orders and whatnot, but I don't know if that's enough of an advantage over independent printers.

I agree. But not all FEK locations are able to accept shipping. My location is one of them, unfortunately. I am unclear as to the logic behind this. I think that if the FedEx name is attached, they should provide FedEx services. It just makes sense.

There is no reason you should have to set foot in a FEK if it's inconvenient. Let FEK do the work.

And I run a small business now and it's hell getting into that part of town, unlike the university.

It will take years to roll this out and the office scuttlebutt is that it will begin on the coasts and move toward the midwest because the midwestern stores were the most recent to be overhauled, so they don't want to go in and muck it all up right after having remodelled so many.

The not so good side of it, as I see it, is that we lose the aforementioned branding that the Kinko's name carries. The good side of it is that we might finally stop hearing all the "Kinky" jokes.

You guys are funny. When it is 5am and you wake up in a cold sweat to realize you forgot to make copies for your 9am meeting, you won't give a damn if the place is called Kinko's, FedEx Office, or Saved Your Butt Again, Inc., you'll hop in your car and drive as fast as you can to get there.

This is kinda like when Palm Pilot dropped the Pilot, but none of their customers stopped using it. Then they split into PalmOne and PalmSource, names which no customer actually ever acknowledged existed.

Then one of them (no one really remembers which) reverted back to the original Palm name, and finally settled on the name "Apple Newton" to reflect on their relevance in the market.

FedEx should sell the Kinkos name to some "marital aid" manufacturer where finally it would make sense.

I wish I were kidding about the copies.

I predict this will be a marketing disaster. The Kinko's brand is really strong.

nnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I had no idea that by getting protest flyers copied or organizational calling cards printed on card stock made me a small business in search of a back office.

I actually think they have a pretty good thing going with the FedEx Kinko's co-branding. It recalls the strengths of both companies.

Take the UPS Store for example - did you know you could do copies and laminating and faxing (although not at the same level as Kinko's) at the UPS Store? Most people don't. The only two times I've stepped foot into a UPS Store was for UPS delivery purposes. They don't come to the top of my mind for anything else. Same thing will happen to FedEx.

Stupid, as everyone else is saying.

Spend the millions of dollars upgrading those craptacular work stations so that (a) they are actually attached to a working internet connection and (b) they can manage to open a word doc. I've seen more computing power at an inner-city public library.

I'm still gonna call it "Stinko's".

Too bad. He built such a great brand around a name that others gave him for his weird hair in college.

FedEx-Kinko's has been around for a while now, but in the eyes of most people, FedEx is still synonymous with overnight shipping and nothing else. Kinko's, on the other hand, is the entire fucking category.

@sprocket79: because the fedex brand is so weak?

Maybe they'll end up having to pull an ATT-Cingular-ATT changeback. Those mistakes are soooo cheap to fix. Not.

@JDAC: @JDAC: "Copy Your Own Shit" - I just busted out laughing!

Its association with its product/service was as strong as, if not stronger than, Xerox with copiers or Kleenex with facial tissues. You thought, "I need to fax something but I don't have a fax machine. Where's the nearest Kinko's?", not "Where is the nearest office support service store?"

This is akin to Wal-Mart snapping In-N-Out Burger, then renaming it Wal-Grill. Maybe.

Something in the article that didn't make it into the Consumerist post: the company says it will cost $696 million to make this incredibly stupid change. Nearly 700 million dollars to change their name to something worse. Can you imagine what could be done in the world with 700 million dollars? Would it be possible to spend 700 million dollars in a way likely to result in less net benefit to anyone than this name change?

'cos I'm not installing it until then.

Wait, did Harvard Business School ever have a Kinkos? That could explain the complete detachment from reality.

@mgy:

Best qoute ever.

I figure 6 months before they announce mass closing of FedEx Offices stores.
It realy should have been "Kinkos - FedEx" from the start. Kinkos as a brand represents a location. Where do you go to get copies? You go to Kinkos.
FedEx is a service company. You don't "go" to FedEx, they come to you.
Or, you go to Kinkos to FedEx something.
They have screwed everything up.

How many brands under the happy FedEx roof? We have FedEx Express (known internally as "FedEx Classic"), FedEx Ground (a.k.a. FedEx NewCoke), "FedEx Custom Critical", "FedEx Home Delivery" (apparently a different thing from FedEx NewCoke), now introducing "FedEx Office" and coming soon, "FedEx Burgers" and "FedEx Taco Trucks".

Hey guys, the thing is some exec had been sitting at a meeting thinking that they needed to say somethiing becuase ya know, they're making $X,XXX,XXX a year, this is the best he/she could come up with and because all the other overpaid execs couldnt think of anything better to talk about they all aggreed that it was a great idea.

I belive I just stole a Bill Simmons theory.

I agree with others in that if I were looking for a place to make some copies or print some photos or something, and I passed "FedEx Office," I would not be inclined to go there. On the other hand, I don't consider myself a small, medium, or large business, nor a "mobile professional"; I'm just a person who sometimes needs to copy or print stuff. So apparently they're not interested in my business, anyway.

Oh no-berries. This bring us one step closer to it being called Wal-Mart.

time marches on...in the near future, one company will own everything in the usa.....

This is dumb. The Kinko's brand name had the lock on "do-it-all integration". The FedEx brand equates to shipping. I think this is a bad branding decision.

Awww. Another college memory dies. Long live 24-hour, save your ass Kinkos! Seriously, before everyone had access to a zillion computers and printers, Kinkos helped many an all-nighter paper toward a (reasonably) happy ending.

I wonder if they'll keep the craptacular service that they're known for.