Gross margin refers to the percentage of sales that is gross profit. In effect, it is gross profit restated as a percentage of sales.
With stock investing, one of the valuation ratios used is the price to book ratio. It identifies the spread between book value and market value for a share of stock. As the spread increases the ratio increases. A good example is Coca-Cola. Its price to book ratio hovers in the 11 range. Coca-Cola is a Dow Jones Industrial top 30 stock.
In business the best source of new business is the existing customer. Discovering the customer’s habits and characteristics allows the sales department to expand into new geographical territories with similar customer characteristics and/or modify the existing product lines. The key to success is gathering the proper information at the point of sale.
I’ve been asked to identify the average margins in the construction industry. Honestly, there is no such thing. I tried and after several hours of research I couldn’t even get one of the types of contractors to have consistency in their numbers.
A very common small business in the service industry is the carpet cleaner. Many owners of such businesses desire to know the margins and of course the associated operating expenses involved.
In your typical business operation, turning the inventory over as often as possible has several benefits. First, it generally reduces overall costs, secondly, it generates greater profits and third, by increasing the profitability, the company has a greater return on equity. OK, this seems all well and good, but does turning the inventory over in the house flipping business as fast as possible generate the same benefits?
In business there are four distinct business models. Just about any business can be identified with one of the four. The following are the four types of business models: 1) Low-Volume, Hi-Margin, 2) Hi-Volume, Hi-Margin, 3) Low-Volume, Low-Margin and 4) Hi-Volume, Low-Margin.
Mixed costs are a more advanced business concept. Mixed costs refer to a combination of both a fixed and variable component. A common error made by most small business entrepreneurs is the misapplication of the formula. Many small business owners understand the textbook definition but rarely exercise the concept in reality.
There are a multitude of principles used in business, some are industry specific, others are functions of business. But there is one that is a general principle that is used across the board in all areas of business. It is called the ‘Substitution Principle’. It works just like the substitution principle in math that we all learned about in algebra.
Contribution margin is a core business concept and is often used in cost accounting to identify the amount of financial contribution a sold product provides to the company. Simply put, contribution margin is the sales price less the direct costs (sometimes referred to as variable costs).
