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Breaking even

Description

How businesses need to adapt – an example of one business changing its focus from retail to online. Examining a second-hand golf exchange, showing how stock is obtained and how it is sold. Following a huge investment in IT systems, it is ready to cope with a continuation of the rapid sales increases it has enjoyed in the last 2 years. Now there are 12 staff, 30,000 customers, and annual sales revenue of £2 million. Break-even is in sight.

Classroom Ideas

Introduce the concept of break-even, how it can be predicted and representing costs and revenue on a break-even chart. Students could write simplified business plan for their own business idea, and using research on costs, prices and market demand, try to calculate when they’d reasonably expect to break even. Look at Golfbidder as a case study, investigating how the business has developed and how it functions in an auction market dominated by eBay.