Question: Karen is an acupuncturist with a busy practice. In addition to acupuncture services, Karen sells teas, herbal supplements, and rice-filled heating pads. Because Karen's primary income is from acupuncture, she feels that she is providing the other items simply to fill a need and not as an important source of profits. As a matter of fact, the rice-filled heating pads are made by a patient who receives acupuncture for them instead of paying cash. The rice-filled pads cost Karen $5.00, $8.00, and $12.00, respectively, for small, medium, and large sizes. The ginger tea, relaxing tea, cold & flu tea, and detox tea cost her $2.59 per box plus $5.00 shipping and handling for 24 boxes. Karen uses a cost plus markup method, whereby she adds the same set amount to each box of tea. She figures that each box costs $2.59 plus $0.21 shipping and handling, which totals $2.80, then she adds $0.70 profit to each box and sells it for $3.50. Do you think this is a good pricing strategy? How would it compare to marking up by a percentage of the cost?

1. What is the markup percentage for a box of ginger tea?

2. If the rice-filled heating pads sell for $7.00, $10.00, and $15.00 for small, medium, and large, respectively, what is the markup percentage on each one?

3. Karen wants to compare using the cost plus method to the percentage markup method. If she sells 2 small rice pads, 4 medium rice pads, 2 large rice pads, and 20 boxes of $3.50 tea in a month, how much profit does she accumulate? What markup percentage based on cost would she have to use to make the same amount of profit on this month's sales?