SUSU shop item prices

Anonymous submitted on

Friday 15th December 2017

Complete

I'm sure this was probably asked befire but I couldn't find any threads but why is stuff in SUSU shop so expensive? and why is there a card charge? Shouldnt the prices be lower to accomadate the financial needs of students? I though there should be enough business for it to have lower profit per sales? I'm genuinely curious - there's everything under the sun there, and that's great, but surely a few of them are a bit excessive?

Answers

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Emily Dawes submitted on

Friday 12th January 2018

Complete

Hi!

Thanks for your question! In terms of the card charge, this existed as it costs us around 15p per transaction to process card payments. However, we are unable to charge for card transactions from Saturday 13 January, so we put 3 options to student vote during the AGM, in which students chose for the Union to absorb the approximately £20,000 a year of card charges we incur. 

In terms of prices in the Shop, we obviously aim to be competitive and to keep prices as student-friendly as possible, but we are an independent outlet rather than part of an enormous company, and as a result don't have the same bulk buying power, for example, as other local small shops like Co-Op. Any surplus created by the Shop is reinvested directly into students (for example Clubs and Societies grants), but as the University look more and more likely to continue to reduce our block grant,  our reliance on our outlets increases. 

I'd be really interested to hear your views on specific products/sales strategies for the shop - if you'd be willing to talk through them please email me at pres@susu.org!

Flora, Union President