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Thanks for the example. It got me thinking. It's true that a sale at $0.20 profit margin is still a profitable sale, so if the alternative is to not make a sal

Thanks for the example. It got me thinking. It's true that a sale at $0.20 profit margin is still a profitable sale, so if the alternative is to not make a sale at all, then better make it. And... in the case of expirable things like food, even a negative-margin sale is not something to back out of, if again the alternative is to not make the sale at all. That nearly-expired porkchop was already stocked, no way to get back the purchase cost, but you can get something. But you should not give out negative-profit coupons to begin with for perfectly fine non-expired goods. I hear that. I guess you would also worry if a customer's behavior forestalls other customers' spending. Like if you have 50% off on bacon but you forgot to set a maximum amount of units, then one customer comes along and buys up the entire supply.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> I guess you would also worry if a customer's behavior forestalls other customers' spending. Like if you have 50% off on bacon but you forgot to set a maximum amount of units, then one customer comes along and buys up the entire supply. Even that's not really the end of the world. Okay, so you've lost a higher margin sale from the customer who wouldn't have had a coupon, but you've still managed to clear out your stock of nearly expired bacon, and the other customer is still standing in your store looking for some breakfast food and might just buy some breakfast sausages instead, or come back and buy their bacon next week. You might have done better to do things differently, but only a little bit, which is probably true of every reasonable decision anyone has ever made about anything. And maybe you wouldn't -- maybe a purchase limit would have meant you didn't sell out on nearly expired bacon and would have had to throw it out. Sometimes there's no way to know for sure what would have happened in the alternative and you're just happy if you're making money.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> I guess you would also worry if a customer's behavior forestalls other customers' spending. Like if you have 50% off on bacon but you forgot to set a maximum amount of units, then one customer comes along and buys up the entire supply. Even that's not really the end of the world. Okay, so you've lost a higher margin sale from the customer who wouldn't have had a coupon, but you've still managed to clear out your stock of nearly expired bacon, and the other customer is still standing in your store looking for some breakfast food and might just buy some breakfast sausages instead, or come back and buy their bacon next week. You might have done better to do things differently, but only a little bit, which is probably true of every reasonable decision anyone has ever made about anything. And maybe you wouldn't -- maybe a purchase limit would have meant you didn't sell out on nearly expired bacon and would have had to throw it out. Sometimes there's no way to know for sure what would have happened in the alternative and you're just happy if you're making money.