How to Price the Clubhouse Fridge So It Pays for Something

Ask five committee members what a soda in the clubhouse should cost and you will get five answers and one argument. Someone wants it at cost because "it is a club, not a kiosk". Someone else has seen what the petrol station charges and wants the fridge to fund the new nets.

Both are right about something, so here is a way to set prices that ends the argument.

Start from what it costs you

Look at the last receipt from the wholesaler or supermarket. A crate of 24 cans at 168 kroner is 7 kroner a can. A box of 30 chocolate bars at 210 kroner is 7 kroner a bar. Write the per-unit cost next to every product. This takes ten minutes and most clubs have never done it.

Add the same margin to everything

Pick one margin and apply it across the fridge. Around 50 to 70 percent on cost is the range where members do not blink and the fridge still earns. A 7 kroner can at 60 percent is 11,20, which you round up to 12.

Round up, never down, and round to a whole kroner. Nobody has ever been annoyed that a cola was 12 instead of 11,20. Plenty of treasurers have been annoyed by a fridge full of 11,50 prices.

One price per category

Members do not want to read a price list. They want to know that "a can is 12, a bar is 10, water is 8". Group the fridge into three or four categories and give each one price, even if the club pays slightly different amounts for different brands. The simplicity is worth more than the fifty øre you lose on the expensive brand.

The kids question

Every club with a youth section has this discussion. Should the under-tens pay the same as the seniors?

The honest answer is that a discount by age is impossible to enforce on a fridge, and trying to creates exactly the "roughly what I have" culture that empties the cash box. Keep one price. If the club wants to treat the youth teams, stock a cheaper product for them, like a smaller water or a plain juice at 5 kroner, and let the price do the work rather than the rule.

Know what the fridge is for

Finally, agree on paper what the fridge earnings go to. "The fridge pays for the end-of-season trip" or "the fridge covers balls and bibs" is a sentence every member can get behind, and it makes a 12 kroner cola feel like a contribution rather than a mark-up.

Then say it on the door. A line under the QR code that reads "Every can pays for the Christmas tournament" does more for the takings than any price cut.

Where the prices live

Whatever you pick, the prices have to be the club's own, not a supermarket's barcode database. With Bippa a volunteer sets the price once per product in the club's space, and that is what the buyer sees when they scan the barcode on their phone. Change your mind after the committee meeting, and the fridge charges the new price from the next scan. No new sticker, no new sheet of paper on the door.