Did You Know: How Sale Items Are Chosen

"Did You Know" is our series of blog posts about Green Earth Organics: how it works, how you can do more with your account, etc.

Every week, when we update the fruits and vegetables for the coming week, we also update the sale items page of our website. The fruits and vegetables on that page change weekly, while the grocery items tend to change monthly.

The fruits and vegetables on that page are usually chosen because our supplier gave us an excellent price. If the distributor has a lot of stock - as happens most often when an item is at the height of its season - they will give us a discount to pass on to our members.

A lot of the fruits and vegetables on sale are too expensive to put into the regular bins, but are too tasty to resist carrying. Recently, we've had some of our best local fruits on the "sale items" page: cherries, raspberries, blackberries, bulk blueberries, canning peaches, and more.

The grocery item sale items are chosen for a variety of reasons. First, there are monthly specials from the supplier or manufacturer. Each month we receive a flyer from each of our suppliers with discounts of anywhere from 5% to 30% off various items. Sometimes everything from a certain brand is on sale and sometimes only one exact item is discounted. When we get a discount, we pass that on.

Second, we often put new products on sale. Sometimes we've received an introductory discount on the product, but often we just mark it down anyway. We aren't always able to do this - sometimes the margins are just too narrow - but we like to make sure our members see new products and the "sale items" page is an easy way to showcase them. This is especially important with perishable items where we have to buy full cases; if an item doesn't sell well at the sale price, we will often discontinue carrying it to avoid having waste.

Third, we sometimes put items on sale because we have too much stock or because we received an item accidentally. If we miss counting a case when doing an inventory and order more of something, or if the supplier sends us the wrong size of something, it is usually easier to put it on sale than to return it (especially since the supplier will often give us a discount if it is their error).

We do the best we can to keep sale items in stock, but sometimes they sell very quickly. Occasionally we've had issues with the availability from our sources too: if an item is on for a very good price, sometimes the supplier will run out of stock.

To get the best prices and find the newest items, we suggest checking the sale items page before each delivery. As with the rest of the website, the sale page is updated by 6 PM on Thursdays with the following week's stock and prices.

Happy organic eating, and saving!