Feedback on The Ecological Food Society

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For example, we have spring water delivered for 31¢ a gallon (not 80¢ to $5.00) , . , and why the oversell on purifiers? Certainty portable water purifiers can be valuable to those trapped in the city, but for your ad to imply that water thus purified is equivalent in nourishment to living spring water is a bit absurd (and your replacement filter costs $3.49, not $1.00).

The one item—an organic cosmetics kit—that I did order from EFS has never come, despite the fact that I sent for it the day after receiving the Christmas option list (promising Christmas delivery), On January 11, 1972 I wrote to EFS requesting either immediate delivery or a refund and expressing our disappointment. We still haven't heard a word.

All in all, your ideas look great on paper, but something is keeping them from becoming manifest. Just growing pains, I hope. See you on the mountain top.

Bink Williams
New Orleans, La.

Thanks for your letter, even if it was only to let us know haw we seem to have messed up in your case, Unfortunately, one of the disadvanages in not running an (IBM-type operation is that you don't get IBM efficiency (if there is such a thing). Anyway, I am personally looking into what happened to your order.

But now to some other questions you raise, which have to be answered if we are not to come off as charlatans (even though you were nice enough not to actually state the only conclusion that logically followed from your letter),

While I'm glad you liked the apples offered for Christmas, I'm sorry you are not a dried fruit-vitamin-nut lover. Our selections are not made an the basis of gustatory appeal alone . . . we have to balance that against what's available that comes up to our standards. Which brings me to our prices.

We have stated in our correspondence with members that our prices might often seem way out of fine . . . and they were high at first. Often, the only things we could certify as being of the quality we said they were cost us an arm and a leg (for a variety of reasons you may or may not be aware of), and then we had to add on our (minimal) 29 to 38% markup.

However, as soon as we had solved the quality problem and had a secure base for a certain item, we set about cutting consumer casts. In some cases, we lowered prices about 40% (without being asked) because our new volume allowed us to twist arms and hold out rewards to those who would manufacture to all our specifications. We even sent back refunds (on Vitamin. C, on Shampoo, on water purifiers) to members who had ordered at the higher price because we had managed to reduce our cost in the interim, What other company in the entire country does nutty things like that?

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