BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I hate going there but might consider - how much profit do they make on average items anyway? My general rule only go to Whole Paycheck if the Co-op does not have something I really need.

it's a significant amount of money for us

Since someone else is bound to ask, too...

Store web site

5880 Centre Ave

Pittsburgh, PA 15206 USA

map, directions & nearby stores

Phone 412.441.7960

Store contact form

Store hours:

8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week.

Yesterday they had some tax-week sale going on, which should still be going on Wednesday, I'd guess. We got a rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and a bunch of vegetables for $10 and change. Pretty decent deal for prepared food when you're too lazy to cook dinner.

Hmm... Where's the "Like" option for this?

i sold $12,000 worth of overhyped goods at my register today, and it was a slow monday with a late-evening bomb threat interruption. five percent of twelve grand is $600. multiply that by however many cashiers there are on a wednesday, divide it by some sort of terror factor, and you have quite a bit of donation.

i think you guys should use the money to buy the buildings flanking the new office on penn, then put in some friends who will help keep doughboy square from looking like what it will probably end up becoming anyway. the city doesn't need any more bike lanes or yearly updates to the bike map. what it needs is a bike-friendly holding company.

Man, if we could buy those buildings for 5 grand we'd run this town.

i'm sure the owners would rather sell to a group of local do-gooders than to developers who are willing to pay beyond anyone's market value understanding for the same buildings.

$12k at the register does not equal the profit- I don't know what their margin is, but 5% of that will be signifivcantly less. All of that being said, go buy something and tell them you are there to support Bike Pittsburgh.

as the pic above shows, they raised $5K for VO last time. that's a nice chunk

may i remind people that whole foods was voted one of the best places to ogle bikes in the city by bike pgh voters?

If they can clear $100k in a day, then why not do these fund raisers everyday for a different non-profit and split the proceeds 50/50? At that rate they could make $10 - 15 Million easily, and cover most of the org's operating budgets for the better part of a year.

I believe NASDAQ:WFMI is the reason. They are still a publicly traded company, and the goal is to make money for the investors. The warm and fuzzy crap is just good PR.

helen s, you must be confused: all i do is make profit.

profit = price - cost of good sold

you look like a prophet in your pic

that was at vegbreath

btw, we could use some people to help table at this. if anyone is available to staff a table, let me know. the shifts that i need filled are the following: 12-3 and 3-6

please email: coordinator@bike-pgh.org

if interested

everyone here understands economics and likes to explain it to prophets, but no one understands that everything sold at wfm is 100% profit, all the workers are volunteers, and that shopping there is what will save the planet earth and all of its inhabitants.

i'll sit at that table during my break, just as long as the table is outside by all those bicycles.

the uncompromising sarcasm is getting impressive, i must admit

Wow. 5% of of a day's profits are over $5K? That's $36,000,0000 or so a year. I'm guessing weekends are beter. As Erok says, "Nice chunk".

@vegbreath. The nice thing about being sarcastic is that you never have to worry about making a coherent statement. If the folks reading aren't smart enough to understand you? Well, gosh! Whose fault is that?

LOL, I think I would feel better if I just slap some cash straight-up to Bike Pgh. At least then I know 100% of it will be going to to the cause. I'll probably do this in lieu of making the Whole Foods trek.

I'm just a paradox in that the only thing "green" about me is that I ride a bike. I still totally eat processed food and have mostly incandescent light bulbs in my apartment. LOL

It's 5% of sales not profits

@impala- i would say riding a bike does more good for the world than installing some expensive light bulbs. LOL- i often justify some non-green choices with, "well, i don't own a car and ride a bike everyday, so i can ________." in the grand scheme of things, it's usually something lame like not carrying an empty bottle around for hours looking for a recycling bin, or turning a heater up a bit.

how much money did you make? billions?

incoherent or not, i stood at the table for five minutes and sold a ten dollar map.

and to take a moment aside from my confusing normalcy, the sign in the wfm cafe and displayed on the bike pgh main page says five percent of profits, but every time someone at the store talks about 5% day, it's sales. scott says it's sales, our marketing director said it was sales over the loud speaker yesterday, and i (maybe?) goofed and assumed that it's 5% of whatever i pull into my register, so five percent of my sales.

i'm unsure here, so i'm unclear there.

ok. gosh. i'm not here to convince you of anything, just to amuse myself and make the company for which i work question its judgment in hiring and continuing to employ me.

when i made the post, i went off of what the board in the pic said. then we found out it was actually 5% of sales.

we also just got word that we just set the new record for 5% day. more info later

I've only shopped at wf like 3 times....one of which was yesterday! I got lots of veggies, fish and CHEESE. Yay for cheese and bikes.

i shoulda bought some cheese. coffee took precedence tho

new record? that's awesome!

a number of people came over to ask about the rain barrels behind the table...of course they left with membership information and a smile

oh yeah i moved the table outside because people could only see it if they were going to the cafe so this way it was easier to rope in everyone. and in the process of rejoicing in being outside again, i forgot that i'm a redhead and wasn't wearing sunscreen.

thanks lolly, outside is good.

5% of sales? I guess that makes sense - a yearly $38 million in profit seems like a bit much, but for sales, about right.

I'm surprised they gave up 5% of sales. It was decades ago when I looked into profits of grocery stores, but at that time profits were only about 2% or 3% of total sales.

well, the natural food industry doesn't follow the same grocery store profit model. that's why you saw the explosive growth and buyout of the independents in the past 10 years by kraft/philip morris and the like.

5% of sales? I guess that makes sense - a yearly $38 million in profit seems like a bit much, but for sales, about right.

Just for informational purposes, Whole Foods' fiscal year ends on the last business day of September. For the year ending 27-Sept-09 the company had total revenue of $8.03 billion dollars. Their operating costs were $5.27 billion which results in Gross Profit of $2.75 billion for the the entire corpotation. Corporate accounting gets complicated fast, but lets just leave it at that. They operated 284 stores as of 27-sept-2009, so that works out to a little under $10 million in profit per store. (All these numbers are rounded off).

They didn't pay a dividend last year, but they have in the past, so some years a portion of profits has gone to shareholders.

And some stores are undoubtedly more profitable than others, so you can't draw conclusions by dividing profit across all the stores. It was just an illustration...

as to what Erok said, I wouldn't be surprised if WF is making 50-100% on some items.

They really should update their sign to say 5% of gross sales, that says a lot more to me than 5% of profits.

On a semi-related note, I came by the other day just after the bomb threat as the employees started to walk back into the store. I can't believe how many employees were there!

there are 250 plus of us.

and i told people all we do is make profits. no one ever believes.

of course someone who makes $12000 a day is going to have trouble relating to the rest of us.

WFM gives so much to charities i bet they don't even pay taxes. every time they give you a free bag of chips they can deduct that from their taxes as charitable giving. i would know, i would write that stuff down on the food bank clipboard.

WFM gives so much to charities i bet they don't even pay taxes. every time they give you a free bag of chips they can deduct that from their taxes as charitable giving. i would know, i would write that stuff down on the food bank clipboard.

The thing about public companies is you can find stuff out. According to their 2009 Form 10-K (the detailed annual report filed with the S.E.C.)

Whole Foods paid $69,701,000 (that's sixty-nine million) dollars in federal and state income taxes in FY 2009.

And I really feel like we should thank Whole Foods whole heartedly for doing this. Is there a final tally Erok?

yeah, what was the final haul Erok? Or are you still asleep in your suite at Renaissance after a late night at the casino??