Recently we announced a price change for our Coffee Lover’s Club.
I didn’t say price increase, a notion people are becoming more and more familiar with lately. We did not raise coffee prices but, instead, reconfigured the way each of our customers would receive their coffee. This decision was reached after more than six months of internal debate. The only “sacred” issues to us were our customers, our villages, and the quality of our coffee.
After five years of NOT changing our coffee lover’s club program in spite of postal increases, higher operating costs and increased green coffee prices, we were forced to act or risk losing years of progress in improving the lives of our farmers in third world countries. As it turned out, the solution was much simpler than we thought. By adding a half pound of coffee to each shipment, our per ounce price could remain the same and we would be able to absorb the increased costs involved in our program over these past five years.
One of the suggestions that has been made over the years has been to allow churches, businesses and “heavy” coffee drinkers (like me!) to also participate in the “Coffee Lover’s Club”. Because of the demand we’ve also decided to introduce the “Coffee Lover’s Club – Wholesale” program. We now are able to offer larger volume buyers of our coffee a better price by buying in 5 pound increments.
As it turns out, the dilemma of raising prices never had to happen and as usual, the solution was not only more positive for our Coffee Lover’s Club members but it provided more orders for our farmers. This time, we were able to create a “win-win” for everyone involved and add a feature for the large volume buyers of coffee to boot!
Thanks to everyone who supports our mission and special thanks to those that share their coffee with a friend and tell the Camano Island Coffee story. Remember when someone joins the Coffee Lover’s Club and mentions your name, you get your next shipment free of charge! This has been the most effective way for us to grow over these last 8 years and has been a popular “Thank You” gift for our members.
We appreciate your support. We realize that without you, we could not continue to provide the services that we do for our coffee growing families.
Jeff – CICR