Why Small Businesses Offer Dinky Sales (and why you should support them anyway)
Hey! So. It’s Labor Day. And while this holiday generally means “Vacation!” or “A day off from work!” to many people - in the business world it means “Have a Sale!”. When you’re a business owner of any kind it’s a wise move to take advantage of “key shopping dates” - i.e. dates that customers are more likely to be shopping because they’re looking for a sale.
But when you’re a Small Business owner this can be intimidating. Because look at what you’re competing with: 40% off! 75% off! Because we live in a capitalistic culture we have become accustomed to “half price” sales and huge discounts. So when a small business offers a 10% off sale, it looks like no. big. deal.
However, I want to shed some light on this.
When a business can afford to slash their prices in half, or more, consider what this means. Profit margins. If they can afford to sell their products to you at such a low price (all of a sudden) this means that their profit margins are HIGH AF. From a business standpoint, this is a genius strategy.
However, from a consumer standpoint we have to wonder: why aren’t they giving me a fair market price *all the time*?
As a small business owner I have strived to keep many things in balance:
Sourcing the highest quality ingredients I can find (and not compromising quality over cost).
Paying my employees a fair living wage.
Paying myself a fair living wage that allows me to feed my children real food.
Offering my customers a price that is fair and sustainable for them (while maintaining the above 3 objectives).
That said, our profit margins are low compared to industry standards. I have always priced Goddess Ghee intuitively, rather than based on a business formula for getting rich.
Speaking for small businesses, when we offer a 10% off sale to our customers we are giving you an incredible deal because of our already low profit margins. I imagine this is the case for most small businesses who are considering quality of ingredients/materials, quality of life for our staff, and offering a fair price to our customers.
On the flip side of that, I have to wonder how companies (small and large) can afford to offer huge discounts on these “key shopping dates”.
Are their profit margins low because they’re skimping on the quality of their product?
Are their profit margins low because they’re not valuing their employees, paying a less-than-living wage?
Or are their profit margins low because they’re jacking up their prices - just because they can - rather than offering their customers the lowest price possible to keep their business thriving?
On this Labor Day, or any big sale day, I invite you to consider Profit Margins. I invite you to consider fair commerce, living wages, and quality of ingredients/materials. I invite you to consider, that while 10% off isn’t the deal you’re accustomed to seeing - that it’s a more honest deal - it’s a deal you can trust. Because when the company you’re supporting can only offer a 10-20% off discount - it’s likely that they’re considering all of the factors that I do when I originally put a price on our work.
Thank you to all of the artisans, makers, creators, and stewards of so many small businesses, too many to list. When I see your dinky little "15% off sale!" I think to myself, "They must be doing business like I am. It's not getting anyone rich very quickly, but everybody wins all the time."
We are working hard to source the highest quality ingredients/materials. We are paying ourselves wages that allow us to keep doing this work and feed our families well. And we are always striving to make this medicine available to you at the lowest cost we can. You can trust that.
To support this beautiful and steady work we are offering, browse our SHOP HERE .
