Pizza thief

[snousle]

The pizzas are proving so popular as to be somewhat disruptive. This past week, John's brother and nephew were visiting, so we made the usual batch of 24 pizzas and ate four ourselves. One was somewhat flawed so it didn't get labeled - but I carefully counted out twenty bags and printed nineteen labels, and used them all. This, at least, is not in doubt.

Friday morning at the shop, there was a small crowd of people waiting for my delivery. Several got taken straight from the cooler, before I could even get them into the display freezer. It was all very chaotic. The owner rang up three, and being somewhat embarrassed about not knowing how many packages I'd delivered the week before, I diligently counted up the remainder... fourteen.

As amazing as it sounds, in the five minutes between opening the cooler and getting them into the freezer, it appears that someone shoplifted two of my pizzas. This is both flattering and somewhat disturbing - this is a high-end gourmet market where most of the customers are well known. But there is no other explanation! I can believe it, since there are a lot of closet kleptomaniacs in the world, and the low production and high demand for these things seems to be getting the customers whipped up into a bit of a lather. I may have contributed to this myself by asking some customers "go ahead and take one from my cooler", which certain minds could have interpreted as meaning that they were free. In any case, I do remember more hands in the cooler than were accounted for at the cash register, though I have no idea whose they were. I told the owner I'd adjust the next invoice to reflect the missing pies. [sigh]

I would love to raise the prices on these things but I frankly don't know how to approach it with the owner. I'm terrible at asking for money.

Comments

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Find me online and we can commiserate over stories of difficulty asking for money. I'm dealing with a particularly hard-to-swallow result of that difficulty right now, as it happens.

[p0lecat.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I had the same thing happen to some T shirts I made a few years ago. 4 turned up missing but other wise they would have sold out.

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Does it make sense to raise the price in subsequent venues only, or does this guy have the exclusive Tony pizza license or something?

[flamedryad.livejournal.com]

YAY for food so good it is worth stealing
well heres hoping it was just an accident
>HUGS

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

One thing I recall from my management course was that when demand begins to outstrip supply, the supplier's best strategy is usually to raise prices until demand balances out.

Not that that helps you figure out *how* to suggest raising prices.