A franchise is a legal agreement that allows an independent business owner (franchisee) to trade using the trademark, trade name and business format of the franchisor (owner of the original business) in return for a fee and ongoing support fees or royalties.
There are many benefits to buying a franchise. The number one benefit of becoming a franchisee is that you will not be starting from scratch on your own. When you buy a franchise you have two distinct things on your side. First and foremost you can take advantage of the name recognition of the franchise. This alone will help you to drive traffic to your business from day one. And of course, as a franchisee you will receive support from the franchisor. Again, this helps during the start up process because you are not forced to do everything on your own.
Another benefit of buying a franchise is that you will be able to control your start up costs. You will get all the details you need from the franchisor, and from there it will be up to you to come up with the exact amount of money that you need. In many cases this beats starting your own business because your costs will fluctuate more than you care for them...