On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 10:19:53AM -0800, Leigh Reynolds wrote:
> I am planning on placing a wholesale order with Mt. Peoples by the
> middle of next week, think 7th or 8th. It would be delivered on
> Monday, the 12th. I have a wholesale catalogue at the store (Art
> Dogs and grace - 218 Vassar St. Phone 324-2787) if any one wants to
> come by and look at it.
Thanks Leigh!
> Wholesale catalogues cost $5. each if you want your own, otherwise
> you can bring your buyers club catalogue to the store and update
> your prices with the store catalogue.
I was looking through the buyers club catalog last night, and it was
quite helpful to have, compared to searching their website (without
prices). Now I'm thinking I will recommend people use the buyers club
catalog (knowing the prices are actually a bit lower). I could buy
some extra copies, and give one to everyone who joins the club (and
pays their $5 dues).
> I defer to Marigael or Jeb about how to organize this -- payments
> and all. I will probably write Mt. People's one check for the whole
> thing, and people can just pay me when they place their order... I
> guess thats the best way. Let me know if you have a better idea.
That sounds good. Keeping it simple for now is a good idea. One
thought I had was that people could pay the buyers club prices up
front, and then expect a bit of a refund based on the actual prices.
This padding would also cover any extra costs (such as CC fees)
associated with the order, and the 5% for the buying club fund,
without extra transactions.
Marigael had questions for me about the necessity of having a 5%
markup at all, and I have considered that it might be unnecessary.
However, I think we are trying to create a co-op organization here,
(and there will be some expenses involved).
For example, it costs me money to host the website, this mailing list,
and the domain name, (all of which I have been paying out of pocket so
far). I would like the buying club fund to pay me the standard $15
per month for hosting services, so I'm not loosing money(?)
Also, since quality email is important for group communications, I
would like to offer FREE (and ad free) email service to members who
need it. It actually costs a little money to offer free email though,
so the $15/month would increase slightly based on usage after 30 Mb.
(Your email is wrapping funny, for example Leigh, and I could fix it
for you by giving you a buyorganic.org email account.)
Of course, these expenses are *tiny* compared to the expense of
running and staffing a store as the old co-op was trying to do. In
fact, they could probably be covered for quite some time through the
simple one-time $5 membership dues, assuming we keep recruiting at
least few new members each month.
However, in the near future, we might also like to have an answering
service accept telephone orders and forward questions from people
without email capabilities. This would cost at least $45/month for
live operator service, which is still a small expense to provide this
service to the larger community. I'm sure the 5% markup would easily
cover it, with money left over. This extra money would cover any misc
unforeseen expenses such as restocking fees, etc, and then the balance
could be returned to members in a patronage refund, similar to REI.
All this is open for discussion, of course; so if you have questions
or ideas, please let me know! I'm not going to worry about the 5%
markup too much for now, since it adds complexity, but I think it's
still part of my overall plan.
I will post Leigh's announcement on the website later today...
Thanks again!
-jeb
