Discussion Questions for Forecasting Revenue (Customer Demand)
Pick a coffee shop where customers order at the counter works well for this activity, but small restrauants, auto parts stores, hair salons, and many other businesses also work for this discussion. I was going to pick Starbucks but got behind that is why posting .
Observe
Observe a business serving customers for 15 minutes or 20 minutes.
During this time count the customers served and the approximate dollar amount of each customer's order.
Calculate and estimate revenue
1. Estimate an AVERAGE amount per customer order.
2. Then estimate the revenue for this hour. IE 15 minutes multiply by 4, 20 minutes multiply by 3 for the revenue per hour.
3. Then using the hours of operation, estimate the number of customers and the revenue per day.
4. Then using the days of operation in the week, estimate the number of customers and the revenue per week, per month and per year.
Instructions:
1. Share this experience in a paragraph in the discussion area.
2. Write a second paragraph about the assumptions you needed to make for this assignment AND how this would be different if you needed to order the items needed to serve the customers for this week.