Exam 18: Price Setting in the Business World

Phoenix Co. wanted to achieve a 20 percent return on an investment of $2 million during the coming year. Last year total costs for its product were $200,000, and 40,000 units were sold. The company expects to sell the same number of units in the coming year. Using target return pricing, what price should it charge for its product?

A producer makes an item for $32 and sells it with a 50 percent markup to a wholesaler. The wholesaler then applies a 20 percent markup. A retailer then uses a 60 percent markup. The final retail selling price is:

A disadvantage of average-cost pricing is that it

Customers tend to be more price sensitive

Break-even analysis evaluates whether the firm will be able to cover all its costs with a particular price.

Identify a weakness of the average-cost approach.

When setting prices, the marketing manager should consider the firm's demand curve, or else the price may not even cover the firm's total cost.

When the end benefit of a purchase is significant to the customer, he is likely to be less price sensitive.

When customers have substitute ways of meeting a need, they are likely to be more price sensitive.

Retailers who earn high profits generally use higher markups than retailers who have low profits.

Use this information for questions that refer to the Sporting Products, Inc. (SPI) case. Randy Todd, marketing manager for Sporting Products, Inc. (SPI), is thinking about how changes taking place among retailers in his channel might impact his strategy. SPI sells the products it produces through wholesalers and retailers. For example, SPI sells basketballs to Wholesale Supply for $8.00. Wholesale Supply uses a 20 percent markup and most of its "sport shop" retailer customers, like Robinson's Sporting Goods, use a 33 percent markup to arrive at the price they charge final consumers. However, one fast growing retail chain, Sports Depot, only uses a 20 percent markup for basketballs, even though it pays Wholesale Supply the same price as other retailers. Furthermore, Sports Depot occasionally lowers the price of basketballs and sells them at cost--to draw customers into its stores and stimulate sales of its pricey basketball shoes. Sports Depot is also using other pricing approaches that are different from the sports shops that usually handle SPI products. For example, Sports Depot prices all of its baseball gloves at $20, $40, or $60--with no prices in between. There are three big bins - one for each price point. Todd is also curious about how Sports Depot's new strategy to increase sales of tennis balls will work out. The basic idea is to sell tennis balls in large quantities to nonprofit groups who resell the balls to raise money. For example, a service organization at a local college bought 2,000 tennis balls printed with the college logo. Sports Depot charged $.50 each for the tennis balls-plus a $500 one-time charge for the stamp to print the logo. The service group plans to resell the tennis balls for $2.50 each and contribute the profits to a shelter for the homeless. Todd is not certain if Sports Depot ideas will affect SPI's plans. For example, SPI is considering adding tennis racquets to the lines it produces. This would require a $500,000 addition to its factory as well as the purchase of new equipment that costs $1,000,000. The variable cost to produce a tennis racquet would be $20, but Todd thinks that SPI could sell the racquet at a wholesale price of $40 each. That would allow most retailers to add their normal markup and make a profit. However, if Sports Depot sells the racquet at a lower than normal price other retailers might decide to carry it. -Randy Todd wants to use marginal analysis to price the new tennis racquets, but doesn't know the exact shape of the firm's demand curve. Under these circumstances marginal analysis:

Setting relatively high prices to suggest high-quality or high-status is:

Which of the following statements is true?

Walgreens Drugstores advertises that its Tylenol prices are "the lowest in town" in order to stimulate sales of other products along with Tylenol. This is an example of:

Use this information for questions that refer to the Sporting Products, Inc. (SPI) case. Randy Todd, marketing manager for Sporting Products, Inc. (SPI), is thinking about how changes taking place among retailers in his channel might impact his strategy. SPI sells the products it produces through wholesalers and retailers. For example, SPI sells basketballs to Wholesale Supply for $8.00. Wholesale Supply uses a 20 percent markup and most of its "sport shop" retailer customers, like Robinson's Sporting Goods, use a 33 percent markup to arrive at the price they charge final consumers. However, one fast growing retail chain, Sports Depot, only uses a 20 percent markup for basketballs, even though it pays Wholesale Supply the same price as other retailers. Furthermore, Sports Depot occasionally lowers the price of basketballs and sells them at cost--to draw customers into its stores and stimulate sales of its pricey basketball shoes. Sports Depot is also using other pricing approaches that are different from the sports shops that usually handle SPI products. For example, Sports Depot prices all of its baseball gloves at $20, $40, or $60--with no prices in between. There are three big bins - one for each price point. Todd is also curious about how Sports Depot's new strategy to increase sales of tennis balls will work out. The basic idea is to sell tennis balls in large quantities to nonprofit groups who resell the balls to raise money. For example, a service organization at a local college bought 2,000 tennis balls printed with the college logo. Sports Depot charged $.50 each for the tennis balls-plus a $500 one-time charge for the stamp to print the logo. The service group plans to resell the tennis balls for $2.50 each and contribute the profits to a shelter for the homeless. Todd is not certain if Sports Depot ideas will affect SPI's plans. For example, SPI is considering adding tennis racquets to the lines it produces. This would require a $500,000 addition to its factory as well as the purchase of new equipment that costs $1,000,000. The variable cost to produce a tennis racquet would be $20, but Todd thinks that SPI could sell the racquet at a wholesale price of $40 each. That would allow most retailers to add their normal markup and make a profit. However, if Sports Depot sells the racquet at a lower than normal price other retailers might decide to carry it. -If SPI produces tennis racquets, how many racquets must it sell at $40 to break even?

Break-even charts usually assume that:

When a firm's average variable cost is constant--no matter how much is produced--then the firm's:

A profit-maximizing oligopolist knows that his marginal cost curve usually intersects a:

Average-cost pricing may lead to losses because there are a variety of costs-and each changes

Even if a firm's average variable cost remains constant per unit, its average cost will increase as output increases.