Tuesday, August 3, 2004

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?



I hope you don't mind 2 posts in one day but I have a question for all of you. I'd love all advice on this situation.



I've been getting inquiries from knitting stores and knitting teachers about wholesale discounts for Stranded Color Knitting. From what I can tell wholesale discounts are generally from 40% (to non-bookstores) to 55% (to bookstores). The booklets are currently priced at $9.99 with $4.37 from each book going to rabbit rescue. Cafepress gets the rest. So if I do one of these deep discounts it means that rabbit rescue gets no money. Nada. And lately there has been a greater need than usual for money with lots of rabbit abuse cases and the usual after-Easter shelter overpopulation.



I've offered to do smaller discounts, say 20%, but I hear back that this isn't enough and would cause the stores to actually lose money after paying shipping and the costs to pay staff to process the books. I'm assuming in this case they were planning on selling the book for $9.99 as well. I've also been told that the Cafepress shipping amount is too high but I'm not sure which shipping option they meant.



The only wholesale option Cafepress offers is for me personally to buy 15 books. When I purchase from my own Cafeshop I get the base price and if I buy 15 or more, I can get a 35% discount. So I can buy the books in lots of 15 for $3.65 a book plus shipping. If I sold the books wholesale for half price, $4.99, there would be a $1.34 profit for rabbit rescue per book minus the extra shipping cost which would be $1 a book if I buy 15.



So we're talking a 34 cents profit per book for rabbit rescue plus I have to make more trips to the post office and find packing materials. I'm not fond of going to the post office. The wholesale inquiries are coming from people wanting to buy maybe 4 or 5 books wholesale, not massive quantities. Also, to do this, I'd have to take the money away from the current rabbit rescue earnings, thus delaying their checks.



I really wanted to keep this book priced as low as possible but I could raise the price of the books to help absorb the wholesale discounting.



So which do you vote for?



A. Buy the books myself and send them off and make the 34 cent profit



B. Not sell the books wholesale at all, just keep doing what I've been doing



C. Raise the price of the booklet to $12.99 to more easily cover wholesale costs