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Tonasket Natural Foods Co-op
Serving--and Connecting-- Our Community Since 1977
MEMBER DISCOUNT POLICY Effective April 1, 2010 POLICY CHANGE: In a continuing effort to maintain balance between the benefits of Membership, the store’s profitability, and the compensation and work-environment of the staff, the Membership discount program will change to a 2% discount on all Member purchases, effective April 1, 2010. This policy will be reviewed in conjunction with upgrades to the cashiering system, and further member benefits will be considered at that time. Member savings from the “Member Specials” initiated last fall will hopefully expand, as Management continues to seek opportunities to pass wholesale bargains on to the Membership. As always, all Members are reminded that additional discounts are available for volunteer work at the store—please see Alice for specific opportunities and scheduling. BACKGROUND: All of the operating policies of our Co-op generally strive to achieve a fair and reasoned balance between three major interests: the benefits of Membership, the financial stability of the store, and the compensation of the staff who ensure the store’s daily operations. These three interests are often at odds with one another. For example, lowering prices and raising wages would be great for Members and staff, but detrimental to the store’s financial stability. Similarly, raising prices might be great for profits, but hard on Member’s wallets. Ultimately, it falls to the Co-op’s Board of Directors to set policies that achieve a reasonable balance between these three interests of the Membership, the store, and the staff. The Co-op has a long history of operating at a financial loss—a fact that has often gone unnoticed because of the infusion of outside funding from Barter Faire grants, fund-raising events, the “give back” program, and so forth. These outside sources have been utilized to make many visible improvements that the store itself could not afford, such as the Garden Room addition, the new walk-in cooler, etc. While these improvements to the building and operating equipment of the store give the impression of prosperity, the reality is that store profitability continues to be a serious challenge that Alice and the Board continue to address. The Board in recent years has been forced to confront the food industry trend of eliminating Member discount programs—indeed our Co-op held out for years while most all other operations discontinued their Member discount programs. While bucking this industry trend was good for the Membership’s wallets, the store could no longer afford the program. In an attempt to balance the three interests of Membership, store, and staff, the Board revised the Member discount policies in September of last year, eliminating the blanket 5% discount program and installing the once-a-month 10% Member discount cards. At about this same time, store management began actively seeking and offering “Member Specials,” through which bargains in the store’s wholesale prices have been passed on to the Membership on an ongoing basis. While providing some relief to the store’s bottom line, the 10% discount card program has not proved to be operationally viable or financially beneficial. Operationally, the severe limitations of our current cashiering system have resulted in long check-out lines and occasional-but-unpleasant interactions with staff. (The installation of a “scanner” system will enable us to consider other options.) Financially, a result of the 10% discount card program has been the card’s use for high-volume purchases of low-profit food items, which has increased profitability pressure on the store—the exact opposite of the intention of the policy change. (see an archived copy of the previous discount policy) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CO-OP BULK & SPECIAL ORDER POLICIES Effective April 1, 2010
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