Pricing.. The weight on small business owners' shoulders.

It's been a while since we last blogged, but we wanted to take a moment to share with you some of things that have been on our mind lately.

As a small business owner, pricing of your products is one of the key factors for long-term success.  Pricing is part strategy, part data-analytics, and part art.  A lot of things are considered when setting your pricing or when you decide to change it.  

Over the years, we've experienced great growth, commensurate with an increase in costs to deliver our delicious goodies to all of you.  Raw ingredients have skyrocketed over the years (thank you climate change), coupled with increased shipping and labour costs.

Now there is a couple of options that can be done to mitigate against loss of profitability:

1. Change our raw ingredients to cheaper alternatives (ex: using flavouring extracts instead of the actual raw ingredient, using chemical based-additives, or straying away from the traditional recipes that have made us famous)
2. Begin charging/increase chargeable rates like shipping.  One can increase the amount charged or increase the threshold for free shipping.
3. Raise the price of our amazing products to accommodate the increase in cost to produce.

We have decided to choose the 3rd option as its the most transparent, fair, and stays true to the values of The Moroccan Bakery - to be authentic, never waver on quality, and continue with the tradition of hand-made works of art.

Many of you have probably experienced this with other retailers you frequent.  Places like Tim Hortons, Starbucks, etc have all adjusted their pricing to accommodate.  We'll be doing the same.

As a result, you may notice a change in our pricing for our delectable goodies and now understand why.  We never started this venture to become Trillionaire overlords, but wanted to share our gift to all of you while making enough to provide for our growing family.  Our mistake is that we probably waited too long to make this adjustment.  Over the years, we've kept pricing pretty consistent and, in hindsight, we probably should have implemented small price increases annually as we charged far below market value for artisanal hand-made desserts.

Lessons you learn when operating your own venture...

The average price of our cookies going forward will be approximately $2.99 (CAD) for our smallest packs and $2.72(CAD) for our 25 packs.  The typical artisanal cookie/sweet retails from $3 - $5 each, so we are still below industry averages.

Rest assured, this adjustment will ensure that we continue to deliver on the quality of products you have all now come to expect from us.

We'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to comment below.

With love,

Your extended family at The Moroccan Bakery