This is a touchy subject, and I hope you read this simply as me thinking out loud and sharing theory and thoughts, and not me slamming business owners or caffeine addicts. (I agree that at the end of the day, any little bit counts, and it all adds up; i just don't think they take it far enough.)
I love the fact that local stores are giving away part of their sales to the earthquake victims or one of the relief efforts. I really really do.
But I can't help but think about the fine line between giving a certain percentage of sales to relief efforts vs. giving 100% of sales or 100% of profits to relief efforts. The fine line I'm talking about, essentially makes me feel that some stores may unconsciously (or indirectly unknowingly) be taking a slight advantage of the situation to increase personal sales and therefore boost personal profits and income. However, I truly hope I'm incorrect in my belief, and that I'm just a weird individual with a skewed thought process due to watching to many episodes of the X files in the 1990s.
Obviously, it's fantastic that a business is willing to give up any percentage and donate it to "X" group that's doing good. It truly is!
However here's the part that makes me think that it doesn't really make sense:
Take for instance a coffee house. To me, buying a coffee at a coffee house is a privilege and not a daily necessity. Yes, I understand that coffee is in fact a necessity for some to operate properly,(lord knows you don't want to even look in my sisters direction if she hasn't had her coffee), but you have to agree that a $5 coffee is a treat and most homes, offices have coffee.(including my sister who drinks homemade coffee. Yeah! Go sis!!) What i'm getting at, is, there's cheaper coffee out there that makes sense in this particular case. (I'll make my point further down)
Anyway... said coffee shops says it will donate 20% of sales on a specific day.
To me, this doesn't make much sense. I don't own a coffee shop nor do I know much about the business model. However, i did major in hotel management and took plenty of food and beverage management courses. 20% of sales to me sounds extremely low to be 100% of their profits. After all, we are talking about flavored water, and bread based foods that clearlly should have higher margins (or you're maybe not running a healthy food/beverage business). Then again, I may be wrong.
There are a few trains of thought here:
1- as a coffee shop owner, if you really, truly want to sound like you care a LOT, give up 100% of profits for a day. Heck, I know a local burger place that gives 100% of SALES to different charities about once a month. That's huge!
(then again, 20% of sales may very well be 100% or profits, and in this case, the manager or owner needs a lesson in salesmanship to make what they're doing sound as noble as it really is.)
2- I understand that as a buyer of coffee that's about to spend $4-$8 on coffee (and a bagel) anyway, that it's better to go somewhere where a slight percentage of what you were going to spend will be donated. I get that. I really do. Then again, I don't understand why this person would choose to not just skip the unnecessary spending on an overpriced coffee and donate the entire amount they would have spent on coffee to relief efforts. Or at minimum, go ahead and pass on the $6 humongo capuccino chai rigoletto, with rare almond shavings and sunali pistachio extract, topped with whisked cream from baby himalayan alpaca yaks, infused with extinct green michucocho leaves, and just get the $1.25 coffee of the day with free cream or milk and sweetener of choice. Then you'll have 80% or ($4) of your intended spending($6) to donate, and 40 and a half cents the store made on you will also go to relief efforts. Simply a win win for the ones that you wanted to donate to assuming you donate those other 4 dollars directly to a cause.
Then again, I guess I have to assume that anyone who has the ability to spend $6 on coffee every day, close to 200 dollars a month, should have plenty of extra cash lying around to make a worthy donation and actually already has, so I should just stay quiet.
Once again, this isn't me chastising coffee buyers, or criticizing a business, it's just me thinking outloud and sharing a theory.
2 comments:
The "donation" thing is a business ploy in itself. Horrific things happen in this world everyday, but unless it's a headline grabber, worthy of a nice sign painting the business in a good light, nobody cares. You really think starbucks gives a hoot about Haiti?
Good points Mike, but unfortunately we have to agree that this is how the system operates, now ploy or not, as you point out people need dire help now and any bit counts. Even without the earthquake these are places where people die due to infectious diseases that are easily curable. I made my donation to Haiti through Partners In Health and one of its founders Paul Farmer (he came from lower-middle income family, went Harward than had a life long commitment to 3rd world healthcare and poverty reduction etc...) discusses similar points to the one you have raised. However as he points out, and as you know, however we get help to those places they count, as the lives they save, they need to get saved now. Would we get as much donation to those places if we only had altruistic donation channels available? I doubt it. In a system (my home country included) where at the end of the day individualistic consumption is king, selfishness is the driving factor perhaps not so altruistic means is the best alternative available.
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