This page teaches how to combine a margin-target price, a price-volume comparison, and a branded-style comparison into one complete pricing and profitability check, for a retail buyer, a factory-side merchandiser at Delta Garments who needs to understand how its own cost feeds every later pricing decision, or a brand-side contact managing both roles. The first three lessons of this course each taught one separate check; a real pricing decision on a real style needs all three checked together, on one page, before a price is finally approved.
A buyer who runs each of the three checks in this course as separate, disconnected exercises, once each, in three different files, can approve a price that passes one check while quietly failing another, since nothing forces the three results to be seen side by side. Without a single combined worksheet, a style can clear its margin target, look fine on a price-volume comparison run in isolation, and still be priced wrong against the comparable branded style beside it, because no one step in the process ever compared all three outcomes together.
You need: the pricing formula from Lesson 5.1, the total-profit comparison from Lesson 5.2, and the branded-style price-gap check from Lesson 5.3. Lessons 5.1 through 5.3 are useful preparation, though not required.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: each of the three checks on its own is covered in Lessons 1 through 3; this lesson only combines them.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Complete pricing check | Running the margin-target price, the price-volume comparison, and the branded-style price gap together for one style, rather than any one of the three alone. |
| Margin target | The margin percentage a season's own plan requires a style to achieve, set before any single price is chosen. |
| Total profit | Profit per piece multiplied by the number of pieces actually sold, the figure that decides which of two price plans earns the business more money. |
| Price gap | The difference in shop price between a private-label style and a comparable branded style sold alongside it. |
| Cost before profit | Everything a company pays to make or buy a product, before its own profit is added. |
Each of the first three lessons in this course answers one question on its own: what price hits a margin target, which of two price-and-volume plans earns more total profit, and whether a price sits at a sensible gap from a comparable branded style. A complete pricing check runs all three for the same style, at the same time, because a price that passes one check can still fail another, and only checking all three together shows the full picture before a price is approved.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic hybrid vs. export MTO | A domestic hybrid retailer such as Cedar & Co. can revisit all three checks again at reorder, since cost and volume can both move; an export Made to Order retailer generally runs the complete check once, before commitment, with no reorder point to revisit it | A hybrid retailer's complete check is a repeating habit; an MTO retailer's complete check is a one-time gate that has to be right before the order is placed |
| Factory-side visibility into the cost | A factory-side merchandiser at Delta Garments can confirm the cost figure that feeds every one of the three checks, but does not usually see the retailer's own margin target, volume forecast, or branded-style comparison | A factory-side contact who is asked to help build the worksheet should confirm the cost is correct, while leaving the three retail-side judgements to the retailer that owns them |
| A style with no comparable branded style | A genuinely new private-label style, with nothing similar sold in the same shop, cannot run the branded-style price-gap check as originally described | The complete check still runs the margin-target and price-volume checks; the branded-gap check is skipped and noted as not applicable, rather than forced onto an unsuitable comparison |
| A style approved on two checks but never checked on the third | A style clears its margin target and its price-volume comparison, but no one ever checks it against a comparable branded style before it goes on sale | Skipping one of the three checks defeats the purpose of a complete worksheet; a style approved on two out of three checks is not the same as a style approved on all three |
| Product families | The same three-check structure applies whether the style being priced is apparel, socks and hosiery, knit-to-garment, terry and towels, or home textiles and bedding | A retailer new to the complete check often starts with a single, familiar style, then extends the same three-check habit to other product families later |
Cedar & Co. is finalising the pricing for its own hybrid style, equivalent in value to Order A, made by Delta Garments: 12,000 pieces committed against forecast, with a 3,000-piece reorder option once early sales confirm demand. Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, confirms the buying cost of USD 8.00 per piece Cedar & Co. is working from is correct and unchanged from the original quotation, since every one of the three pricing checks Cedar & Co. needs to run depends on that cost figure being right.
With the cost confirmed, Omar, the owner of Cedar & Co., runs all three checks together: the margin-target price against the season's own 60% target, the price-volume comparison between holding price and cutting it, and the branded-style price gap against a comparable branded T-shirt sold in the same shops.
The worked numberAll three checks point the same way: the USD 19.90 price is close enough to the 60% margin target to keep without adjustment, it beats the alternative price-volume plan by USD 24,000, and it sits USD 0.10 below the comparable branded style, a small but real advantage. A style that failed even one of these three checks, for example if the branded style were priced at USD 19.80 instead, USD 0.10 below Cedar & Co.'s own price rather than above it, would need the price revisited even though the other two checks still passed.
A common mistake is stopping the pricing decision as soon as one check passes, most often the margin-target check, since it is the simplest of the three, and assuming the price-volume comparison and the branded-style gap would also have passed without actually running them. A style that clears its margin target can still lose total profit against an untested alternative price-volume plan, or sit badly against a comparable branded style, and neither problem shows up unless that specific check is actually run. The whole purpose of a complete worksheet is that no one of the three checks stands in for the other two.
A single style's own price is not properly checked until three separate questions have all been asked and answered together: does the price hit the margin target, does it beat the realistic alternatives on total profit, and does it sit at a sensible gap from anything comparable a customer could choose instead. On Cedar & Co.'s own style, all three checks point the same way at USD 19.90: close enough to the 60% margin target, ahead by USD 24,000 in total profit against a lower alternative price, and USD 0.10 below the comparable branded style. Passing only one or two of these checks is not the same as completing the pricing decision.
Cedar & Co.'s planning assistant reports that the USD 19.90 price passes the margin-target check, close to the season's own 60% target, and recommends approving the price on that basis so the style can be finalised before the buying deadline. The facts in front of Omar:
The note from the planning assistant's own file:
Should Omar approve the price now, on the strength of the margin-target check alone? Decide before you open the decision.
No. Omar should not approve the price until the price-volume comparison and the branded-style price gap have also been run.
Two facts decide this. First, this lesson's own rule states that a complete pricing decision requires all three checks, and this lesson's own trap warns specifically against treating one passed check as proof the other two would also pass. Second, the worked number in this lesson shows all three checks can point different ways on a similar style; approving on Check 1 alone risks missing a Check 2 or Check 3 result that would have changed the decision, exactly the situation the trap describes.
A tight buying deadline is a real pressure, but it does not change what a complete pricing check actually requires; if time is genuinely too short to run all three, that constraint should be stated openly as the reason for a partial check, not disguised as a completed one.
This is the same gap Lesson 5.2 already calculated in full; it is repeated here to show what skipping Check 2 specifically would have risked, on top of whatever Check 3 might separately have found. A complete worksheet exists precisely so that a gap like this is caught before a price is approved, not discovered afterward in a season's own results.
Use the T20-C05 Pricing and profitability worksheet in full. Enter the style's own cost and margin target on the first sheet to confirm the margin-target price, enter at least two price-and-volume plans on the second sheet to compare total profit, and enter the comparable branded style's own price on the third sheet to calculate the price gap. The fourth sheet draws all three results together into one combined view, so a style's own pricing decision is visible as complete, or as still missing a check, on one page.
[Download the Pricing and profitability worksheet](../../templates/T20-C05-pricing-and-profitability-worksheet.xlsx)
1. What three checks does a complete pricing and profitability worksheet combine?
2. A style passes the margin-target check but has not yet had its price-volume comparison or branded-style gap checked. Is the pricing decision complete?
3. A factory-side merchandiser is asked to help a retailer build its complete pricing worksheet. What is the merchandiser's own appropriate role?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complete pricing check | فحص التسعير الكامل | Vérification tarifaire complète | Tam fiyatlandırma kontrolü | Running the margin-target price, the price-volume comparison, and the branded-style price gap together for one style, rather than any one of the three alone. |
| Margin target | هدف الهامش | Objectif de marge | Marj hedefi | The margin percentage a season's own plan requires a style to achieve, set before any single price is chosen. |
| Total profit | إجمالي الربح | Profit total | Toplam kâr | Profit per piece multiplied by the number of pieces actually sold, the figure that decides which of two price plans earns the business more money. |
| Price gap | فجوة السعر | Écart de prix | Fiyat farkı | The difference in shop price between a private-label style and a comparable branded style sold alongside it. |
| Cost before profit | التكلفة قبل الربح | Coût avant profit | Kârdan önceki maliyet | Everything a company pays to make or buy a product, before its own profit is added. |
You now hold a complete pricing and profitability worksheet, from a margin-target price through a price-volume comparison to a branded-style check. The next course in this track builds on this same worksheet habit for a different retail planning decision. Back to the course map