Bike pirates asks people to pay what they can for everything used. We have specific prices for new parts like tubes and chains.
PWYC brings us money that a designated rate would not. We would lose money if we had a six bucks an hour policy for DIY time. Sliding scale means, rich people pay for poor people, people that can not afford the price of a biek repair will be supported and subsidized by the work space.
Asking for memberships is even worse for the flow of commerce. Allow people to be generous in their donations of money to the space and they will.
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Mark Rehder mark@re-cycles.ca wrote:
When re-Cycles began back in '97 we operated out of donated space and functioned only via donations, both bikes and income.
At that time the shop was only a place for buying used bikes and parts, fixed up by volunteers (there was no DIY repair). The problem was that you'd overhaul a nice old touring bike and some smart-ass would offer only $20 for it! It wasn't that we much money at the time, but hey when you spend ten or more hours fixing up a bike $20 seems like a bit on an insult. It's ok for a dept. bike (to this day ours are still only $40 or $50) but not the nicer ones. Ottawa is a reasonably wealthy city, especially downtown, so we do not tend to have customers of really low income beyond students and the odd assistance recipient. So the MEC types would come to us looking for a killer bargain. That started to bother some of us...
Once we had to start paying rent and working within a grant structure things had to change. We got organized, and created a pricing guide, though staff always have flexibility. While we don't offer volunteer time in exchange for parts we do offer vol. time for DIY time.
We've also come to realize that there will always be folks that try and take advantage. We found out one guy was buying our cheap bikes and reselling them, and we get the odd young guy who protests the prices but drives a rather nice car. But most folks understand that even the second-hand shops have to set varying prices for their used goods, and a local Sally Ann store even has an auction section for the good stuff. Either have one price for everything, or accept the vagaries of "what it's worth" and realize some folks will always push for a cheaper price.
Most folks think we are a bargain, especially because a few blocks away is for-profit used bike shop with prices at least double ours (but he somehow always has business). In fact, when someone says "hey that other guy wants double the price" I offer to raise ours to match. ;)
Mark Rehder Coordinator re-Cycles Community Bike Shop http://re-cycles.ca
On 2012-04-13, at 12:33 PM, Jonathan Morrison wrote:
We did the same, "donate what you feel it is worth to you," thing in
Utah. Based on a local restaurant called One World Cafe ( http://www.oneworldeverybodyeatsfoundation.org/).
At least for awhile...
At the time my observation was that it felt like we were getting more
cash donations than we would have setting a price, this feeling was shared and largely fueled by anecdotal references of amazing cash donations by grateful people for things we would have otherwise given away for free. But at that point we had no point of reference to determine if this was an anecdotal observation or something we could prove in numbers.
Accountability....
After looking into the cost of developing a Point of Sale, we determined
that while writing software was cheap it was FAR cheaper to pay someone else to maintain it and so we invested in Quickbooks Point of Sale. At that point we gave up "recommended donations" and started setting actual prices for parts. For example a derailleur in the parts bin is $5, nicer ones are individually priced in a glass case. If someone couldn't pay you can volunteer and log your hours on our volunteer tracking system ( http://volunteer.bicyclecollective.org) to trade out as a credit later. Simple. Consistent. No dickering. Easier on volunteers.
What happened?
Our shop income nearly doubled, and we were able to hire more staff to
help more people. As a result the number of bikes we were able to give away more than doubled. Best yet, instead of word smithing suggested donation language, we were able to honestly say "NO" to the IRS when they asked, "did anyone receive anything in return for what you listed as cash donations?" Which means our Cash Donation line item became became pure, and thanks to that separation we were finally were able to determine if our shop was profitable or not. For the record, we still get a good amount of cash donations on top of "part sales."
Would we go back to "donate what you feel it is worth to you?"
No. Having been there done that, it is an excellent stop-gap for
collecting funds until a organization has the infrastructure to do it in a more common and expected way. But now that we saw the incredible increase in providing the public with set prices -- it would be hard to think of going back.
Food not Bikes
Going back to the One World Cafe example, everytime I eat there the food
is AMAZING, and if I have $20 in my pocket, they get $20, even if I could have received the same quality for $12 elsewhere. But then I don't tend to eat at One World often because I tell myself it is expensive. Instead I frequent other local owned places with inexpensive set prices. Personally I feel like the "donate what you feel it is worth to you?" feeds on an honest person's guilt, and while I LOVE the concept, One World Cafe leaves me uncomfortable and questioning whether I put too little in for hours. While it is good to problem to have to think about the value of my food, and I [again] love the food there and the concept, I question whether it is sustainable. My suspect of One World Cafe is that it would fail miserably if it was next to the homeless shelter instead of being adjacent to a wealthier part of town (avenues) and next door to the Utah College of Massage Therapy. So proximity to lots do-gooders with money is critical.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Morrison Executive Director Bicycle Collective 2312 S. West Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84115 w: 801-328-2453 c: 801-688-0183 f: 801-466-3856 www.bicyclecollective.org
The mission of the Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an
effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households.
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 9:51 AM, ryan jenkins ryan.t.jenkins@gmail.com
wrote:
We function this way at troy bike rescue, and it is our main source of
income really. There are more of us on this list so maybe they will chime in also.
TBR focuses on this not as a means of hoping to produce more money, but
to separate itself from the current capitalistic paradigm while also keeping the lights on. We also serve a very wide variety of people, and I have found the best thing to do is to build relationships with every customer you can. We aren't just fixing bikes, we are setting an example of a potentially gas free and community supported future. We are trying to empower people to understand their means of transportation. Nobody should feel alienated, by gender/orientation/income/whatever the hell else. This includes people feeling alienated or abandoned because this system has forced them out of the capitalist system or for whatever reason they are not able to provide paper money for our servies. They are more than welcome to volunteer as payment, but the idea of "payment" just makes me feel icky.
To get back to my point, every time this topic comes up with a patron I
try to express this idea to them, make eye contact, and really talk to somehow. Thats why I am there. I am there for that more than I am there for getting my hands dirty, ya know what I mean? If people cant pay, actually cannot afford the 5 $, why would i ever want to deny them the right to ride their bicycle?
This can get tricky though, especially with children. How do you
develop an understanding of respect and "worth" to the work that you do in a capitalist society, while not subscribing to that paradigm. When worth of a skill or favor is based off of an hourly rate, how do we instill respect for what we are doing while also letting people get work done for free? For instance, we started charging a quarter as a minimum for getting a tire patched. Our doors were FLOODED with kids every single time we were open trying to get tires patched. There was no respect for what we were doing as a group, we were just a free service to them. Was this the best way to do it? I don't know, its a hard topic. But thats what collectives and shops like all of ours are here to do right, test out how things could work in a better world.
just my .02 cents.
ryan
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Paul Nagel paul@thebicycletree.org
wrote:
At our volunteer meeting last night, someone shared an anecdote where a
group offering to pump up people's bike tires raised far more money when they asked only that people pay what they thought the service was worth, rather than asking for $1 per pumping (this was something he heard in a business class of some sort). This volunteer went on to suggest we not post our current $5 suggested donation per hour for DIY repair, but rather use language along the lines of "donate what you think the service is worth".
This is in a context where, even on a busier day, with about 12
visitors, we usually receive less than $60, even though many of those people will stay for two hours or more. Also, being more firm about payment is not of interest to us.
As with most of you, we serve a wide variety of people. I can see
"donate what you think the service is worth" being fine for people of even modest income, but I'm concerned about how that concept can be communicated without causing bad feelings in people who can't pay what they think the service is worth.
In the past, when we were just getting started, we advertised our
services as being "free", but accepted donations. That is somewhat different from the idea presented here, as "free" implies people need not/ought not to pay.
Does anyone here have experience with having no suggested donation? If
so, have you utilized both methods in a similar context, and how did the income compare? Also, how did you word your pricing policy?
Thank you,
Paul
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