Monday, July 4, 2011

Delivery Update

We are entering the fourth month of our deliveries to Old West and Watts-Hillandale. Despite more canvassing, I've found it difficult to maintain a steady number of subscribers for the delivery service. We have been as high as 18 and as low as 13, with the average purchase amount per week holding at about $4.25. I am thinking that to make the service more attractive, and to cast a wider net, we will change things up so that anyone can purchase (or not) in any given week and I will simply bill the customers on a monthly basis given what they order (similar to Bella Bean's business model). This would be akin to moving away from a monthly subscriber model and towards a per item per week purchase model. Anyone have have thoughts on this?

3 comments:

  1. How much notice will they need to give you? For example, can I say on Sunday night, yah, I'd like Monday's delivery? The stubborn part of me says screw that, stick with the monthly delivery and they can take it or leave it (but maybe that's why I was made to run a military school, not a budding bakery =). Maybe it's just Bostonians, but I think they'd be more likely to buy into a monthly subscription than have to worry about letting you know which weeks they want in. I'd say switching to a weekly choice opens it up for for folks who maybe can't afford it every week, but at a minimum of $8 a month, that's already super affordable.

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  2. Thanks for the comment. I usually send out my list on Wednesday, and they have by Friday at noon to submit the form for delivery. If you would like to see a sample form, click here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGd5TmFTTmdvM1JYcG5IVXk3a2lTcUE6MA#gid=0

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