Maybe we just can't afford it?

As a supplier, we are the unrequiting side of customers’ love for special offers in supermarkets. We don’t object to them, indeed we were really happy with the 150% uplift we saw during the special offer we ran last Summer in Waitrose and we are hoping to do more bursts with them again this year and now with Budgens, Co-op and Ocado too. We also regularly buy items that we find on special offer.

However, being on this side means we approach the actual cost of things differently, when we come to do our own shopping and we don’t object to items not being on special offer. Roland and I find that it doesn’t really bother us when we can’t afford something; when an item seems a bit expensive to us at that moment. We hope we will be able to afford it soon but we don’t mind that it’s not possible right now. Most importantly, we don’t think that it’s the responsibility of the company providing the product/service to reduce their costs until we can afford it. It’s only our fault that we can’t afford something at the moment because we chose to set up a company and put any money we had into that.

We’re even quite comfortable accepting our spending limitations, feeling somewhat relieved to come to this content conclusion and have no need ponder it any longer.

There was a large feature in the Money section of The Sunday Times last weekend with another proud mother saving around £15 per week by searching the cost comparison websites to find the special offers and only shopping on deal. Terrific, I’ve no objection. This is savvy, careful shopping and she should indeed be proud of her work.

I just wonder though… is it a bit easier just to ask oneself: “Shall I just accept that I can’t afford some of these items today? Is there a cheaper option that I’m happy to buy? Or perhaps I could go without it
until it doesn’t feel too expensive for my budget?"

The majority of producers propose the fairest price for all parties to make enough money to keep the cycle going (those involved in every process of getting the product to the customer) and, if successful, to all hopefully enjoy some profit from it.

It isn't anyone else's responsibility to meet our budget, especially when supermarkets provide large buildings full of other options, and we're not going to think any less of ourselves for not being able to afford some things. We're going to feel pretty chuffed when we can afford them again... probably a lot happier than finding a way to demand them cheaper.


PS – what got us thinking about this…

We had a quote from a great cleaning company for a fortnightly clean of our office. There was absolutely nothing wrong with their prices. In fact we sat down and worked out their travel costs, cleaning products, staff wages and company overheads, and we thought it was a really reasonable quote. However, the total cost to us at the moment is still a bit too much to justify. So we called them up, thanked them so much for the quote, explained that there wasn’t a single thing wrong with their quote nor their proposed service but that we just couldn’t quite afford to have them yet and that any price that we could afford would mean they wouldn’t make any margin at all and that we can’t wait to give them a call in a couple of months when we can hopefully start to hire them.
Then we cleaned our office ourselves and went home.

And what doesn't help argue my point at all...

Today we learned that 90% of Easter Eggs are sold on promotion. So they're not on 'promotion', they're just priced higher to be 'promoted' lower. Grrrrr, this is not helping one bit, big fat companies. How is anyone to know who to trust.