Total Revenue Test

  

Categories: Accounting

A key part of anyone’s online dating profile.

Also, a concept in economics. The total revenue test measures how elastic demand is for a particular product or service.

In a standard supply and demand model, changes in price will impact demand. The more expensive something is, the fewer units you will sell. For terms that respond dramatically to price charges (where even a little increase in price leads to a big drop in the number of units sold), demand is called "elastic." However, if a company can raise prices without leading to a bunch of customers walking away, then demand gets the label "inelastic." The increased prices didn't impact the number of items sold. So...the more inelastic the demand for a product, the more total revenue will rise following a price increase. The company has increased prices, but managed to sell the same number of items. That situation means more revenue.

It's kind of a Simple Simon smell test to see if a price increase worked. A company can see from its total revenue whether it got away with edging its prices higher.

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