Fundamentals of Selling 13th Edition by Charles Futrell

Exercise 10

Mike Bowers sells soap products to grocery wholesalers and large retail grocery chains. The following presentation occurred during a call he made on Bill Reese, the soap buyer for a grocery store.
Salesperson: Bill, you have stated several times that the types of promotions or brands that really turn you on are ones that carry the best profit. Is that right
Customer: Yes, it is. I'm under pressure to increase my profit-per-square-foot in my department.
Salesperson: Bill, I recommend that you begin carrying the king size of Cascade. Let's review the benefits and economics of this proposal. King-size Cascade would cost you 86.8¢ a box. The average resale in this market is 99¢. That means that you would make 12.2¢ every time you sell a box of king-size Cascade. Based on my estimated volume for your store of $40,000 per week, you would sell approximately two cases of king-size Cascade per week. That is $19.80 in new sales and $2.44 in new profits per week for your store. As you can see, the addition of Cascade 10 to your automatic dishwashing detergent department will increase your sales and, even more importantly, increase your profits-and this is what you said you wanted to do, right
Customer: Yes, I am interested in increasing profits.
Salesperson: Do you want me to give this information to the head stock clerk so that she can make arrangements to put Cascade 10s on the shelf Or, would you like me to put it on the shelf on my next call
Evaluate Mike's handling of this situation.