ACCA PM定价：Cost-based pricing

This first article in this series dealt with the theoretical aspects of pricing.This one deals with practical pricing approaches.

The influences on product pricing

The influences on pricing decisions are often listed as:

Cost–the selling price should cover the cost of production.Costs can be calculated in a number of different ways:marginal cost,total absorption cost,lifecycle cost and relevant cost.A cost-plus approach is then used so that a mark-up is added to the cost to produce a price.No company would ignore a cost-plus approach but as we will see it will not always give the best answers to pricing decisions.

Customers–what are they prepared to pay for the product?In effect this relates to the price elasticity of demand for the product and its demand function as explained in the first article.If costs are too high,no-one will buy products–or not in a high enough volumes.【点击免费下载>>>更多ACCA学习相关资料】

Competitors–Are there any?What is the strength of competition?What are they charging?If many competitors are selling very similar products then companies have little flexibility in their pricing:all have to fall in line with the current market price.If a company is a monopoly supplier,it has much more freedom to choose its selling price.Note that monopolists are not guaranteed to make a profit:they might be trying to sell a product no-one wants.

There are a number of different approaches to pricing which a company can adopt.In the rest of this article we will look at these different approaches.

Cost-based pricing

Marginal cost

If the marginal cost for a product was$120,and the company had a policy of adding a mark-up of 25%then the selling price would be$150.That would generate a contribution of$30/unit.Whether the total contribution covers fixed costs so that the company breaks into profit depends on the fixed costs and the volume sold.

There is no point in setting a selling price below variable cost unless the company were contractually obliged to(for example,costs rose after the sales contract was signed)or the company was prepared to lose money initially to break into a new market eg promotional discounts.

Total absorption cost

If the marginal cost was$120,and the fixed overhead absorption rate were$40 per unit then the total absorption cost is$160.Adding a mark-up of 20%would give a selling price of$192.That would generate a potential profit of$32/unit.

An advantage of this approach is that if the product was not selling well at$192 the company could consider lowering the price.If it wanted to keep a mark-up of 20%,it would have to find ways of lowering the$160 cost of the product.The total absorption cost contains both variable and fixed costs,therefore the company is unlikely overlook the importance of trying to reduce fixed production costs as well as reducing variable production costs.

Lifecycle costing

Lifecycle costing takes in to account all costs over a product’s life:pre-production costs,production costs and post-production costs.In the long run,the total revenue generated by a product should be no less than the total costs needed to design,make and close down the product’s production.

For example:

Initial design costs and production line machinery purchase=$2m

Variable production costs and the fixed costs incurred over the product’s life=$10m

Production close-down costs(eg clean-up costs+potential redundancy costs-machinery scrap value)=$1m

So,the lifetime cost of the product is$13m.

If the company estimated that it will make and sell 2 million units of the product,the lifetime cost per unit will be$6.50 and if a long-term profit is to be made the selling price must be set above that.

Lifecycle costing emphasises the importance of taking all costs into account to try to ensure that these are covered by the decision to embark on the production of a new product.In particular it can draw attention to the importance of the up-front costs as spending more on product design might save much more during subsequent production.This would lower the overall life-time costs and allow a profit to be made at a lower,more attractive selling price.

Relevant costing

Relevant costing uses relevant cash flows to assess the cost of the product or contract.These are future cash flows caused by making the product or entering the contract.

For example,a contract required the use of:

Components currently in inventory which had cost$12,000.They are not currently used in the business,but they could be sold for$10,500.

New components that must be bought for$15,000.

An additional member of staff for one year with a$20,000 salary.

Currently idle staff who would be set to work on the new contract-$16,000 salary.

These items would be handled as follows:

$12,000 is a sunk/past cost and is irrelevant.However,the company does lose out on an inflow of$10,500 if the components are used instead of being sold.This is a relevant cost for the contract.

This is relevant.It is an additional cash outflow caused by the contract.

This is relevant.It is an additional cash outflow caused by the contract.

This is irrelevant as it has no incremental cash flow effect.The staff are being paid and will continue being paid,but they will simply be asked to spend time working on the new contract.

The total relevant cost is therefore:$10,500+$15,000+$20,000=$45,500.

This represents the minimum price that should be demanded for the contract.Any amount less than this and the company would be worse off.

The big flaw in all cost-plus based approaches to pricing is that simply because there is a mechanism for arriving at a selling price does not mean that any units at all will sell at that price.The company could be very inefficient so that costs and resulting selling prices are so outrageously high that no customers will buy the goods.Even if the resulting prices are not very high,competitors might be offering the goods at a lower price.

All cost-based methods are entirely inward-looking and pay no attention to customers or competitors.The approach is simple to apply and is often used in practice,but the company must look at the price it has arrived at and consider if it is realistic.

It is also worth noting that using costs to determine prices might under-estimate a viable selling price.For example,a cotton t-shirt might cost$3 to make but if a fashionable brand’s logo can be sewn on to it the potential selling price will be hugely boosted by the brand association even though the logo costs next to nothing to apply.Using a cost-plus approach in this case would set a lower selling price than customers would be willing to pay.

翻译参考

对产品定价的影响

对定价决策的影响通常被列为：

成本——销售价格应覆盖生产成本。成本可以通过多种不同的方式计算：边际成本、总吸收成本、生命周期成本和相关成本。然后使用成本加成方法，以便将加价加到成本中以产生价格。没有公司会忽视成本加成方法，但正如我们将看到的那样，它并不总是为定价决策提供最佳答案。

客户——他们准备为产品支付什么费用？实际上，这与第一篇文章中解释的产品需求的价格弹性及其需求函数有关。如果成本太高，没有人会购买产品——或者购买量不够大。

竞争对手——有吗？竞争的力量是什么？他们在充电什么？如果许多竞争对手销售非常相似的产品，那么公司在定价方面几乎没有灵活性：所有产品都必须与当前的市场价格保持一致。如果一家公司是垄断供应商，它在选择销售价格方面有更大的自由度。请注意，垄断者不能保证盈利：他们可能试图销售一种没人想要的产品。

公司可以采用多种不同的定价方法。在本文的其余部分，我们将研究这些不同的方法。

基于成本的定价

边际成本

如果产品的边际成本是120美元，并且公司的政策是加价25%，那么销售价格就是150美元。这将产生30美元/单位的贡献。总贡献是否涵盖固定成本从而使公司盈利取决于固定成本和销售量。

除非公司有合同义务（例如，签订销售合同后成本上升）或公司准备在最初赔钱以打入新市场（例如促销折扣），否则将销售价格设定为低于可变成本是没有意义的.

总吸收成本

如果边际成本为120美元，固定间接费用吸收率为每单位40美元，则总吸收成本为160美元。添加20%的加价将使售价为192美元。这将产生32美元/单位的潜在利润。

这种方法的一个优点是，如果该产品以192美元的价格卖得不好，公司可以考虑降低价格。如果它想保持20%的加价，它就必须找到降低产品160美元成本的方法。总吸收成本包含可变成本和固定成本，因此公司不太可能忽视试图降低固定生产成本以及降低可变生产成本的重要性。

生命周期成本

生命周期成本考虑了产品生命周期内的所有成本：生产前成本、生产成本和生产后成本。从长远来看，产品产生的总收入不应低于设计、制造和关闭产品生产所需的总成本。

例如：

初始设计成本和生产线机器采购=200万美元

可变生产成本和产品生命周期内发生的固定成本=1000万美元

生产停产成本（例如清理成本+潜在的冗余成本-机械废料价值）=100万美元

因此，该产品的生命周期成本为1300万美元。

如果公司估计它将制造和销售200万件产品，则每件产品的生命周期成本将为6.50美元，如果要获得长期利润，则销售价格必须高于此值。

生命周期成本法强调考虑所有成本的重要性，以确保这些成本包含在开始生产新产品的决定中。特别是它可以引起人们对前期成本重要性的关注，因为在产品设计上花费更多可能会在后续生产中节省更多。这将降低整体生命周期成本，并允许以更低、更具吸引力的销售价格获得利润。

相关成本核算

相关成本核算使用相关现金流量来评估产品或合同的成本。这些是由于制造产品或签订合同而产生的未来现金流量。

例如，合同要求使用：

目前库存中的组件成本为12,000美元。它们目前未用于该业务，但可以以10,500美元的价格出售。

必须以15,000美元购买的新组件。

额外的工作人员一年，薪水为20,000美元。

目前闲置的员工将按照新合同工作-薪水16,000美元。

这些项目将按如下方式处理：

12,000美元是沉没成本/过去成本，无关紧要。但是，如果使用这些组件而不是出售，该公司确实会损失10,500美元的流入。这是合同的相关成本。

这是相关的。是合同引起的额外现金流出。

这是相关的。是合同引起的额外现金流出。

这无关紧要，因为它没有增量现金流量效应。员工正在获得报酬并将继续获得报酬，但他们只会被要求花时间处理新合同。

因此，相关总成本为：$10,500+$15,000+$20,000=$45,500。

这表示合同应要求的最低价格。任何低于这个数量的公司都会变得更糟。

所有基于成本加成的定价方法的一大缺陷在于，仅仅因为有一种达到售价的机制并不意味着任何单位都会以该价格出售。该公司可能效率很低，因此成本和由此产生的销售价格高得离谱，以至于没有客户会购买商品。即使由此产生的价格不是很高，竞争对手也可能以较低的价格提供商品。

所有基于成本的方法都是完全内向的，不关注客户或竞争对手。该方法应用简单，在实践中经常使用，但公司必须查看其得出的价格并考虑其是否现实。

还值得注意的是，使用成本来确定价格可能会低估可行的销售价格。例如，一件棉质T恤的制作成本可能为3美元，但如果可以将时尚品牌的标志缝在上面，那么即使该标志的应用成本几乎为零，品牌关联也会极大地提高潜在售价。在这种情况下使用成本加成法会设定比客户愿意支付的更低的销售价格。

【ACCA PM定价：Demand curves】