Shopinprivate.com offers competitive pricing. While
developing our business plan we determined that it was possible for
us to offer pricing that was competitive with leading pharmacies
while offering privacy and convenience. Here is a summary of how that
is possible.
Factors that contribute to
Shopinprivate.com's low prices:
- Low Rent - Our Warehouse is located in the back of an
industrial park. By locating where rent is significantly cheaper
than a retail store or pharmacy, we can reduce our costs.
- Volume - Our present size is equivalent in sales to a
small pharmacy; however, we only carry 350 different items. We can
take advantage of volume pricing that other businesses our size
cannot.
- Inventory Efficiencies- We stock everything we sell. In
fact we keep about 1/2 months inventory on hand at all times. At
times this can seem like a lot of merchandise and indeed we had to
move into a larger location on April 1st 1999. However, when you
compare the amount of merchandise that a traditional store or
pharmacy has to carry we carry much less. Carrying less inventory
is financially efficient and saves money.
- Sales Tax - Unless you live in Michigan, your purchase
will be exempt from sales tax. This may be a significant
savings.
- Lightweight items - The items we sell lend themselves
well to online purchase. They are generally lightweight, compact,
and easy to ship. Our shipping prices start at $0.99.
- Efficiency - We try our best not to waste money and so
far have been doing quite well. Tom (the President) sets a good
example, he drives a very reliable (but not very stylish) 1987 Toyota
Wagon and uses a desk he pulled out of his friend David's trash pile.
- Publicity - As a young company with a new idea we have
received quite a bit of free publicity. This has saved us a bundle
on marketing costs. We have tried to roll this into business
growth and our method for doing this was to lower prices.
- Competitive Mentality - We carefully monitor competitor
prices and make sure that we live up to our promise.
Factors that may keep us from
having the best prices:
- We don't send unsolicited e-mail. Unfortunately Spam
has become a financially effective method of marketing.
Competitors that use Spam can save money and sometimes offer lower
prices. We believe our strategy of discretion and privacy will be
better in the long term.
- We cannot afford to lose money. Shopinprivate.com is a
privately owned company with limited resources to fund its growth
(we mortgaged our houses). This keeps us from offering products at
below cost.
- We don't screw you on the shipping costs. I think we've
all heard of this trick.
|
