OzGreens

This seems a good a time as any to raise the issue of the costs of running Ozgreens. Good, because we’ve had quite a few new members recently and it’s helpful to remind everyone about the basis that Ozgreens functions on:

Ozgreens is for home roasters only. The coffee is absolutely for personal use only. Please note that we are an all-volunteer organization. As such, we differ from an online retail seller of green coffee in at least two very important ways:

1. Your price is our cost plus shipping and a small service/packing charge to cover expenses.
2. We do as much as we can, as fast as we can, including administration of this site, sourcing, cupping, selling, shipping the green coffee and answering your questions. But as volunteers, we do this in our spare time with absolutely no financial gain, so things may sometimes go a little slower than a standard retail business site. We try our best but we also ask your patience and indulgence.

We believe in total transparency in our pricing arrangement. When we say that the price you pay is our cost plus the packing charge and any shipping to you, that’s exactly it!
We are quite happy to show members the invoice we get from the wholesaler and explain how the only amount added to that is what it costs to get the bags from the warehouse to the place we coordinate distribution from. The amount added is usually .50-.80c per kilo depending on amount being picked up.

Ever since Ozgreens started, we have had a packing/service charge of $1.25 per order. That is to cover things like:

• Printing of invoices
• The cotton bags we ship the beans in
• The post bags or boxes for shipping
• The labels, stickers, etc for identifying and correct shipping.

For the first time in a long time, we paused and added up those costs, and found that in reality, those items add up to approximately $1.63 per order!
That’s largely because over time we’ve moved to more computer printed items, and the supply of recycled photocopy paper boxes and the like for shipping has not kept up with our demand, meaning that we’ve need to buy those items.

So, reluctantly, from the next offer the packing/service charge will rise to $1.70 per order.
BUT... soon we hope to have a shipping option that will reduce that charge a bit. When the shipping module we are having coded for the highly modified shopping cart that is our Bean Store is finished, if you choose either Australia Post Express Post satchel (3Kg) or a Fastway 5Kg satchel, that service charge will drop by .40c because we don’t need a shipping box for that order.

Of course there is a lot more to running an operation like Ozgreens than just picking up a few beans periodically.
Some of the other costs that are carried are:

• The outlay of funds in advance to purchase quantities of: AP satchels, Fastway satchels, cotton bags, labels, etc.
• Purchase of shopping cart software and mods to streamline the ordering process (some $200+ at the present)
• Provision of web hosting for this site, the Bean Store and the forum.
• The time and effort required to pick up, bag, pack and post the orders.

So, if you’re feeling in a generous mood, you might care to think about supporting Ozgreens in a small financial way by using the PayPal Donate button on the right.

Stay tuned for further developments as we begin to scale the Ozgreens operation to cope with our steady growth…