Guest Blogger

My brother had a blog, but he doesn't maintain it anymore. Which is too bad because he's one of the funniest people I know, definitely the funniest accountant. This one makes me giggle every time I see a yogurt pretzel.

Sound Business Strategy

The vending machine at work has an assortment of snacks. One particular snack is yogurt-covered pretzels. These pretzels do not sell well. However, it is not the product itself that condemned these innocent bags to sit on the shelf, waiting for a daring hero to come rescue them, yelling out at each man or woman as they walk by, “E5! E5! Those cookies are loaded in fat; I’m yogurt! Yogurt is healthy! Aw, dammit! Screw you and your M&M’s. You know what the M’s stand for? Macabre and myopic!” (Although yogurt-covered pretzels do know a lot of words, they don’t really have a good grasp on their meanings.)

Anyway, the reason these tasty treats do not sell well can be traced directly to the decision to sell these items out of a vending machine for $1.05.

People don’t carry a lot of loose change with them, so it is likely that the customer will be approaching the machine with a one dollar bill with which to make their purchase. Given the choice between buying any one of a myriad of snacks with just a single dollar bill or yogurt pretzels with two dollar bills, the poor pretzels must wait.

Here’s a quick calculation that represents the lost income for every 100 yogurt-covered pretzels-craving customers:

Customers who are willing to pay the extra 5 cents: 2
Customers who would have paid $1 for yogurt-covered pretzels: 50
Lost income due to charging extra 5 cents: $47.90

Now, I’m not one to help a company out just because they aren’t smart enough to know how to price their product, but the sight of those poor pretzels everyday can wear on a guy. They are innocent victims of the greedy corporation. That’s why I’m introducing my foundation called Save A Pretzel, or SAP. For every dollar that you contribute, I will match 5 cents and release a bag from his glass and wire prison. Together we can save the pretzels.