The £18.50 bottle looks like double your money. It earns £4.63, and that is before anything sits on the shelf too long
Retail Margin and Commission Calculator
Take the VAT off, take the cost off, pay the stylist their cut and the shelf keeps 30 per cent, not 50. Put your RRP, cost price and commission rate in and see what retail really earns, and why paying commission on the ex VAT figure matters.
Retail Margin and Commission Calculator
The shelf priced honestly: VAT out, cost out, the stylist's cut out, and the margin that is actually left.
Why the shelf flatters itself
The £18.50 bottle looks like a double-your-money line. Ex VAT it takes £15.42; after the £9.25 cost and a 10 per cent stylist commission it earns £4.63, exactly 30 per cent. Real, worth having, and half what the price tag implies.
Commission on retail works: stylists sell what they used in the chair, and 10 per cent of the sale beats 0 per cent of no sale. Pay it on the ex-VAT figure and say so, or the shelf quietly pays 12.
Retail counts toward the VAT threshold like everything else in the room, and dead stock is margin already spent: the Stock and Colour Usage Tracker watches both ends.
Take the workbook
The whole shelf in Excel: margin per line after VAT, cost and commission.
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