What ever happened to transparency?

A few people have asked me why we stopped putting the wholesale price (i.e. what we payed) on the same price signs that have the retail price (i.e. what you pay). Some have suspicions that we mark up items more than we’d like to admin.

Our real reasons are less sinister: in practice, it’s very complicated and labor-intensive to calculate, keep track of, and display wholesale prices. And then they change — in the case of produce, multiple times per day. As an illustrative example, jalapeño peppers are (sometimes) sold in boxes that are 1 and 1/9 bushel in size (that’s a measure of volume, not weight or count). Our latest box cost $21, which is within a few dollars of previous boxes we’ve bought. Some of the peppers arrive in unsaleable condition (they are crushed or broken or rotten), and others become unsaleable either before or after we put them on the shelf. So, what is the wholesale cost of a jalapeño? Is it the number of dollars we payed divided by the number of peppers in the box (and who is going to count them?)? Do we count the number of peppers that arrived in saleable condition, or the number we estimate we will sell? To give a more accurate picture to our customers, do we include delivery, transportation, labor, or other marginal costs? NYC Bagel Deli, for instance, requires a separate trip up to a very congested part of north side, while most of our other suppliers are on the south side. Because of this, we are going to mark them up more than our other inventory, but are our customers going to understand this high mark-up unless we disclose the reasoning behind it? And next time we buy, the same box of jalapeños might cost $25, and there might be 250 peppers instead of 275 in the box. Do we spend labor time re-calculating everthing, or do we just leave the “jalapeños $0.15” sign up?

So, the conclusion is that, now that we have some idea of what running a store is like, we need a little while to organize and implement what Andrew calls a “general IT solution” to manage and publish the data. We have as a goal January 1 to have a good working system of transparency: bank account statements, wholesale receipts, sales data, and everything else. Don’t worry, we haven’t lost sight of our vision, it just takes a little bit of time.

Until then, don’t be afraid to ask. We will gladly tell you that limes cost us $14 for 175 count, while strawberries fluctuate wildly (last purchase was 16 boxes for $24).

On the shelf: baby spinach, more heirloom tomatoes, rutabaga, blood oranges, pie pumpkins, conventional and organic mushrooms, Metropolis coffee and tea, Chinese red bean bun.