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price structure



Everyone's thoughts on membership retention were really helpful to us.
Here's another one that goes, to us, hand-in-hand. Price structure.
Here's what we do (and we're not happy with it): We have what we call a
couple share -our market is generally single people living in group
houses or newly married couples without children. We charge $225 for a
season -this year the season for us is 22 weeks. Our 'share' is a rather

traditional share, meaning they get a percentage of whatever is ripe. At
the beginning of the season we tell them what we are planting but only
guarantee giving them what grows.  This year they will probably receive
over $400 of vegetables  judging by local prices. For the past 9 weeks
they have been getting between $20-25 of veggies a week.  Here's an
example from last week -
Tomatoes - all you can eat in a week
Husk tomatoes - all you can eat in a week
hot peppers - all you can eat in a week
sweet peppers - 2
chiles - 3
eggplants - 1
squash - 1
string beans - large handful
basil -  large handful
parsley - handful
flowers - bunch
Herbs, as usual, on request.

We don't bag our vegetables and we let the shareholders pick out of the
vegetable boxes.

So what do you about pricing? Do yo have a better idea? As I said, we're
not happy with this. We feel we are giving a lot of really beautiful
vegetables at cut-rate prices, and we don't even know if our
shareholders realize what a deal they are getting.  I remember back in
college, a neighbor, a business major, was taking that class I think all
business majors take, where they set up a business and sell a product
(all computer modeled even back in the dark ages when I went to college)
and when the class is over they learn that the person that sold the
highest quality product at the highest prices made the most money with
the highest customer satisfaction. I wonder if this is really true?


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