Businesses that sell products want to attract and keep customers who make repeated,
large-volume, more expensive purchases. Manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers
frequently offer trade discounts to buyers “in the trade,” generally based on the volume
purchased. For example, Eastern Restaurant Supply gives a 40% discount to Regal Meals,
a local chain of 34 sidewalk sandwich carts that sell hot dogs and sausage sandwiches.
Another Eastern customer is Suzi Wilson, founder and owner of Suzi’s Muffins. Suzi’s
business is still small. She bakes her muffins between 11
P.M. and 2 A.M. in oven space that
she leases from a bakery. Eastern gives Suzi only a 25% discount because she doesn’t do as
much business with Eastern as Regal Meals does. Eastern also sells to people who are not
“in the trade.” These retail customers pay the regular list price, or full price without any
discount.
Large restaurant chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King can go directly to the
manufacturer for most items or even do their own manufacturing. They can have items
manufactured to their exact specifications for a contracted price. They reduce their costs
by eliminating the distributors (the “middle men”).
The two traditional methods for computing trade discounts are the discount
method and the complement method. You can use both methods to find the net price
that a distributor will charge the customer after the discount. The discount method is
useful when you want to know both the net price and the actual amount of the trade
discount. The complement method is used to find only the net price. It gets its name
because you use the complement rate, which is 100% minus the discount rate. Each
method has only two steps.
When one business sells merchandise to another business, the seller often offers two
types of discounts: trade discounts and cash discounts. Trade discounts affect the agreed-
upon selling price before the sale happens. Cash discounts affect the amount actually
paid after the transaction.
122 Part 2 Percentage Applications
Computing Trade Discounts
1
Learning Objective
Compute trade discounts.
7.1 Students may be more familiar
with cash discounts than with trade
discounts.Trade discounts are dis-
cussed first because the trade discount
is awarded by the seller before the sale,
to encourage the sale,whereas the
cash discount is awarded after the sale,
to encourage the payment.
7.2 Ask students if either discount
method might be more useful to busi-
nesses.If the buyer is comparing differ-
ent sellers,what really should interest
the buyer is the ultimate net price.It
doesn’t make financial sense to base
the decision on a “larger discount”if
the net price isn’t lower.Compare the
situation to that of retailers that have
“big sales”at various times throughout
the year.Some retailers that have repu-
tations for large discounts also have
high original prices.
to Compute Net Price with the Discount Method
1. Multiply the discount rate by the list price to get the discount amount:
Discount 5 Trade discount rate 3 List price
2. Subtract the discount from the list price to get the net price:
Net price 5 List price 2 Discount
STEPS
EXAMPLE A
Eastern Restaurant Supply sells a set of stainless steel trays to Suzi’s Muffins. The list
price is $120, and Suzi qualifies for a 25% trade discount. Compute the net price using
the discount method.
Discount 5 0.25 3 $120 5 $30
Net price 5 $120 2 $30 5 $90
STEP 2
STEP 1