What is ‘Sales Price Variance’
The difference between the amount of money a business expects to sell its products or services for and the amount of money it actually sells its products or services for. Sales price variance means that a business will be more or less profitable than it anticipates over a given time period. As a result, sales price variances are said to be either “favorable” or “unfavorable.”
Sale price variance = (actual selling price – anticipated price) * # units sold
Explaining ‘Sales Price Variance’
Let’s say a clothing store has 50 shirts that it expects to sell for $20 each, which would bring in $1,000. Unfortunately, the shirts are sitting on the shelves and are not selling, so the store has to discount them to $15. It does sell all 50 shirts at the $15 price, bringing in $750. The store’s sales price variance is $1,000 minus $750, or $250, and the store will earn less profit than it expected to.
Further Reading
- Revisions in repeat‐sales price indexes: here today, gone tomorrow? – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
- A flexible Fourier approach to repeat sales price indexes – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
- The capital asset pricing model (CAPM), short-sale restrictions and related issues – www.jstor.org [PDF]
- Short holds, the distributions of first and second sales, and bias in the repeat-sales price index – books.google.com [PDF]
- How is macro news transmitted to exchange rates? – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
- List prices, sale prices and marketing time: an application to US housing markets – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
- Accounting for taste: Art and the financial markets over three centuries – www.jstor.org [PDF]
- List price and sales prices of residential properties during booms and busts – www.sciencedirect.com [PDF]
- Contract expiration and sales price – link.springer.com [PDF]
- A mean-variance synthesis of corporate financial theory – www.jstor.org [PDF]