A letter to Q2 Food Company Owners

Day 737, 15:24 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Free Britain

It has been some time since Free Britain has published, preferring to dabble in other activities on offer at eRepublik. One of these activities has been the economic module, which has provided much enjoyment and hours of countless learning! It is a great experience owning a company, and one of the main aims of the Free Britain brand is to provide reasonable prices to consumers, a fair wage to employees, and of course some small profit to owners and investors!

However, this has become a near impossible task in recent weeks! Why? The answer is simple; company after company attempting to undercut their rivals. At the start of FB Foods, 40 gold was spent (20 to set up, and another 20 to upgrade to Q2). On top of this, a further £600 odd was invested in order to pay for wages and resources for product. All sounds good so far?! And for a time it was! Fair wages were paid, small profit was made, and a fair price (around the 90-100 pence mark) for the consumer.

However, along came a period of time when companies started to undercut. As one undercut another in price, so did another come along to undercut both. And so on...at the moment, current prices are at just over 70p per item. If we think about this price, it really doesn't give much margin for profit, and in actual fact, many business are operating at a loss.

At first glance, cheap prices may seem like a win for the consumer, but it isn't! General Managers, in order to just break even, have to lower wages, which mean less money for consumers. Some companies are actually faced with closure, due to the fact that GMs do not want to pump any more money into a business that LOSES cash. In order to gather enough cash to even pay wages, companies lower prices even more, which result in more companies going out of business and even reduced salaries. And thats before we even consider taxes, and any potential earnings for the government!

Let us not forget the stated aims of Free Britain brands; to provide fair wages, reasonably priced product for the consumer, and to earn a small profit. At the rate things are going, none of these aims will be met, as the simple reality is that in order to prevent further losses companies like FB Foods will just stop trading.

So this is a challenge to other GMs...Glove'r's org had a very good suggestion-everyone sell 100 items per day at 89 pence. That way, consumers get a fair price, GMs make profit and reasonable wages can be paid. Prices are dropping to an insane level, and it wont be too long until none of us are making profit, or can afford decent wages, and then everyone loses! Surely between us all, we can work together, for then benefit of the GM, the employee and the consumer!

This is Free Britain...over and out!