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"This
is neither a government grant
nor a loan program. It has
instead become one of the most
creative things our
organization has ever done to
cut costs to our clients while
maintaining our high standard
of workmanship and materials," a spokesman for
the Aston Whitehall Co-op said.
Instead of our
member-contractors having to
constantly lower their own
prices directly (which always
leads to poor servicing and
cheaper materials), the Co-op
credits each contractor with
funds equal to the client's
discounted amount. As
the Co-op is a partnership
between all of its
member-contractors and
services, the Discount Subsidy
Program acts as a significant
benefit to its entire
membership.
As
an example: The
Best Co-op Price (see Pricing
)
is $20,000.
The Co-op offers the client a $3,000
discount
The contract price becomes $17,000.
The contractor is credited
with
$3,000 upon completion
through the
Discount Subsidy Fund.
Net Result: The client pays
the discounted contract price
and the contractor
is later compensated for the
discounted amount. Where
the Money Comes From: Manufacturers
and Suppliers:
"As an alternative to the normal
discounts offered by
manufacturers and distributors
to our contractor/dealers and
sub-trades, we convinced
several supplier groups to support a
managed Contractor Subsidy Fund.
The net result is that the
monies these distributors and manufacturers would normally
pay out in discounts to our
contractors is simply re-directed to a
centralized "pool" and
is applied as cash incentives
to clients on a discretionary
basis, thus costing absolutely
nothing for the suppliers." Co-op
Revenues: Other
revenues that support the
fund include monthly fees collected by the
Co-op, such as usage fees for our
proprietary Renovation Management
Systems along with revenues
collected from individual
services that pay for
exclusive areas in our new Direct
Access
section (see main
website)
"Each amount that is
credited towards a particular renovation
job takes into consideration the type, size
and location, along with local
and regional booking
schedules of the Renovation
Co-op-Partners as
well as other factors.
Because we are working with a
relatively limited amount of
funds at this point, we must be vigilant in the
amounts credited toward each
job.." the
spokesman continued.
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