Voluntary or franchise chains are, however, harder to supervise in that the central company does the advertising, etc., but the individual stores are owned by the person running them and therefore the parent company is not responsible for the staff, etc., and also doesn't need to put a great deal of investment into it.
加盟式連鎖店的營運政策、市場規畫、廣告促銷也由總公司負責，但人事、財務各自獨立，優點是總公司不需籌集很多資金，就能迅速擴展業務，缺點是管理上比較困難。不過，目前國內許多連鎖店以強大的直營體系為後盾，逐漸加上「加盟店」，以迅速擴展業務。廿年前連鎖經營即已萌芽