Financial Report

By Elka Malkis, Financial Manager

Sales for the first six months of the fiscal year (July 1 through December 31, 2007) were $18,759,574. This is a 3% increase over the same period last year. The departments that saw the largest sales increases were: Wedge Worldwide (483%), General Merchandise (17.9%), Seafood (12.5%) and Deli and Supplements (each at 7.9%).

Our Gross Profit Margin for this period was 35%. This means that for every dollar in Sales, we sent 65 cents to vendors to purchase the products we sold and we got to keep 35 cents to pay all our other expenses.

Those expenses included: Labor (wages, benefits, taxes) totaling 22.9% of Sales; Building costs (utilities, insurance, property tax, etc.) at 2.3% of Sales; Operating expenses (credit card fees, trucking costs, supplies, repairs, etc.) at 4.9% of Sales; Administrative expenses (office supplies, CPA and legal costs, association dues, etc.) at 0.7% of Sales; Governance expenses (member discounts, BOD costs, annual meeting, WedgeShare) at 1.7% of Sales; and Promotions expenses (advertising, this newsletter, charitable donations, etc) at 0.9% of Sales.

We had some "Other Income" which consisted primarily of interest earned and service and delivery fees charged by the Warehouse. We sent $152,607 in to the IRS and the State to pay our estimated income taxes.

When it's all accounted for, we finished the half-year period with a healthy 3.8% of Sales Net Income: about $700,000.