With the recent petrol hike, inflation usually follows. Everyone is going to be hit. We know that animal caregivers are also going to be hit hard as there are vet bills to be paid, petfood to be prepared/bought and this is above the household and personal expenses of every individual and family.
Since May 2013, we have had a sudden increase in medical claims. This coincided with the Berjaya Funds that came in so that has been a great help. But in a few months’ time, the Berjaya funds are going to be used up, so we have to think of ways to raise funds to sustain the increased number of applicants. After all, the Medical Fund is our primary focus and we will certainly do our best to sustain it. Closing the Food Fund will help too, as we can now channel all funds over to the Medical Fund, which reaches out to a larger number of caregivers.
Once inflation sets in, everyone is going to be hit, so merchandise sales will be similarly hit. After the army green Go Meatless” tshirt, we are not printing anymore new tshirts or even replenishing the stock of old designs for the time being. Donations will be affected too as everyone will be tightening their budget strings and living more thriftily and frugally.
Would you like to help us raise funds to sustain our Medical Fund? Here’s one way: In the event that you have to buy gifts, we hope you could consider getting our tshirts, soap and toothpaste as gifts. After all, these are useful things. If you are organising an event, maybe a keychain or a bar of soap can be your door gift. If you are using Primal for your pets, why not buy from us? We give a 10% discount and free shipping, right to your doorstep. All proceeds will go towards our Fund, which means, to the animals.
Whether economic times are good or bad, the street animals will always need help. In a way, we are glad that there is an increase in the medical claims, and many are new applicants. This means our message is reaching out to more people, and we hope, encouraging more people to help the street animals. As such, we really hope we do not have to close our Medical Fund. More so, if all expenses are going up, veterinary medicine and petfood will be similarly affected too. Animal caregivers will definitely need the financial help.
In this respect, we hope that everyone will work together with us in helping us, most importantly, to prevent fraud and multiple claiming. If a caregiver has already claimed from elsewhere and has raised his/her own funds through friends, we urge such caregivers not to apply to us again. Please be honest so that we can channel our funds to those who are really needy and those who do not have the means to raise their own funds.
If you happen to know of cases of multiple claiming by applicants who are claiming from us, please send us the relevant links so that we can check them out, and if need be, advise the applicants on our policies.
For caregivers of community animals, we will continue helping you with your medical bills as per our policy. But we hope you will only claim if and when you are truly needy. If we all work together in this, our funds can last a bit longer and we can continue helping the animals for a bit longer.
As for petfood, if you are hit by the inflation, maybe you could consider other sources like preparing your own petfood. Do your own research about petfood and consult your veterinarian. Using home-prepared petfood can be a form of savings too, but we have to ensure that we prepare it according to correct proportions which provides sufficient nutritional needs for our animals.
Some links:
http://www.thewholepetdiet.com/andi-brown/
http://www.2ndchance.info/homemadediets.htm
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood#Raw vs Cooked
Let’s work together to tide through this inflation, for the animals.
Inflation or no inflation, the animals still need our help.
Thank you!
Comments
6 responses to “Inflation, our funds and your rescue and caregiving work”
I’ve been thinking how to make the ordering of cat food from you easier and less fuss-free for both you and the buyer. One of the reasons why I have not ordered any cat food from you is that I can’t really work out the quantity and shipping and such. So I’ve been thinking that if you want to make the donation of cat food as one of the main fund income, maybe you would like to consider these points.
1. Most courier companies have boxes for sale that come with a weight limit. Usually these are pre-paid boxes. Skynet got them boxes too of many sizes. I know that City-Link got very economical pre-paid boxes.
2. Choose your fav courier company and most manageable box size.
3. Figure out how many Monge cans can go in that box. Or Primal Freeze. Or any other product that can fit into that box. This is based on the most optimum/maximum weight for shipping per box – i.e get the most out of the shipping charges.
4. So you can sell let’s say Monge per box for a fixed price all the time. This price includes shipping charges and you round up all the costs slightly higher, so that a bit more money can go to the fund.
5. And to top up this idea, is the variety box where the buyer does not really know what is in the box. They just order a variety box that is fitted with many kinds of cat food and stuff. This is great for certain products that have an over-supply or when you get free samples and need to distribute them. This is an idea borrowed from the cosmetic beauty boxes like this one: http://www.boxculture.com/cosmobox.
6. So this means for example that I can just order one Monge box and one Feline Caviar box and I will know that when I make this order, how many quantities I’ll be getting and how much I need to pay for the 2 boxes.
This simplifies the what-to-order process and also the pricing, packing and shipping process for you too.
What do you think?
Thanks, Chen. Could work. But I think normally buyers would want to source for the cheapest price. Once we add postage, the price would not be attractive anymore as buyers can purchase the same product elsewhere. That is why we only post Primal. It’s light and we can still absorb the postage.
I’m very bad at calculation, but I think if the price differs only slightly, I think most pet owners would not mind buying a box, considering the high cost of petrol 😀
It’s all about maximising the weight limit of a shipping for a certain box size. I know based on frequent usage that a pre-paid City-Link box can be cheaper than its equivalent Pos Laju charges. And it offers door-to-door service. And if you only use a particular box size, it makes shipping and packing so much more easy for you. And really easy for the buyers to decide to buy. Don’t make it a heavy box because the buyer will then wonder if she will get a backache transfering it to the car and home.
Consumers may be always right, but they are often fickle and indecisive. Sometimes the easiest purchase option (i.e. don’t have to think so hard) and the most convenient opportunity can sway a decision. 😀
And there are some courier companies that are offering economy deliveries – i.e. its takes a few more days to deliver rather than 24-48 hours. I’m not sure which company offers this but I’ve heard about it.
Let me look into all these ideas and see if I can manage them. Thanks!
Managing is always the deciding factor, isn’t it? Understood. And packing and taking stock is very time consuming too!
Anyway, it’s okay to be higher than retail purchases because if an AnimalCare box is competitive with retail prices, then there could be issues with the pet shop owners and suppliers. That would be not so nice because we need the support of pet shop owners and suppliers. So the box main selling point is that the profit goes back to the animals and it’s door-to-door service.
The people who opt to buy an AnimalCare box will know beforehand the price & contents and can decide for themselves if that is what they want to pay for.