Well, it has been a while that I have needed to make this post, yet I put it off because I hate to do it. What is “it”? Increase our pricing. I have only done it once, right after we started, about two months into opening Emma’s Friends, because people told me our prices were too low. They were right and unfortunately, we need to do it again.
Our costs have gone up over the years since we opened in 2008, some, like Coconut Oil has increased drastically. I nearly fell out of my shoes when Coconut Oil prices increased over 20% in one month. (Just to give you a recent snapshot of what's going on with Coconut Oil: http://tinyurl.com/coconut-increase.)
And, of course, that’s not the only place we experienced price hikes. I’m sure you've seen them in the grocery stores, and, being that our ingredients are in large part, those with which we cook, we have been seeing them too. When we first opened, I wanted to make sure our lotions were competitive with those large national brands so that people would try our lotions. Back then, their 8 oz lotions were $8.50. Now, their 8 oz lotions, which I think you will agree pale in comparison to ours, are $10.50, while ours is still priced at $8.
Yet, I struggle with it because I haven’t wanted to out-price ourselves. I know times are hard and I want to ensure we continue to employ our Friends. Our printer, God bless his soul, refused to print us more brochures when we ran out in December because in our talks, I told him I was only printing small quantities because we needed to increase our prices. I told him about the need to raise our prices last December and he continues to remind me that I haven’t yet.
And as I struggled with the pricing, I began to weigh (literally) everything out after packaging to truly quantify the net weight. There are several products we make and sell which weigh more than we have then listed and priced. Our hand and body lotions are the most off kilter. We hand fill our bottles and jars and while we weigh each jar and bottle that stands upright on a scale while filling, it’s more difficult to do that with the lotion tubes. So, we just fill them until they look full. :) But, when full, they weigh between a quarter of an ounce to nearly three-quarters of an ounce more than we have them listed and priced. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you think about it, for every 4 – 8 four ounce tubes of lotion, we are giving away a two ounce lotion. Multiply that by the number of tubes of lotion we sell over three years and that is a lot of lotion that we have given away freely.
Anyone in “business” would be ready to shoot me for having knowledge of this and not doing something about it for years.
So, we have arrived at that point. The one where this soap maker mother of a child with special needs whose mission is to increase awareness and acceptance of individuals with special needs while providing them with creative work with a company which loves and appreciates them for everything they are and aren’t, must come to terms with the fact that if I don’t put on a “business” brain, there will be no Emma’s Friends in the future.
There you have it. The harsh realities of where we stand at this moment in time. So… coming in the future will be a price increase reflective of our costs as they have risen in the last few years based on the actual amount of product being packaged and sold. And, I have committed myself to an annual evaluation of our goods so that our pricing will keep pace with our costs. Sigh. This will all roll out with our new website accompanied with a new brochure.
You can’t imagine how I have struggled with this. It is my prayer that you will continue to see the value in our goods and mission as well as our desire to keep afloat. Thank you for your partnering with Emma’s Friends to creatively employ individuals with special needs. Without your support, there is no Emma’s Friends!
Truly,
Lynn
