Lab Description
The Black Friday Retail Challenge is an engaging, real-world simulation designed to teach students the fundamentals of retail economics, pricing strategy, and decision-making. This lab places students in the role of department store owner during the high-stakes Black Friday sales event, challenging them to maximize profits across six flagship products (with a target of making at least $2,500 extra profit compared to any regular day profit).
Key Learning Points:
- Understanding Demand-Profit curves
- Utilizing interactive sliders and graphs to find the best price of 6 given products.
- Applying mathematical concepts to calculate total profit and percentage discounts
- Creating advertisement posters for the discounted products
Activity Steps:
Through hands-on activities, students will -
- Learn the basics of Demand, Revenue, and Profit. Do auto-graded worksheets to calculate revenue and profits.
- Learn the idea of Revenue and Profit curves, and do an auto-graded worksheet to create revenue and profit curves.
- Use the provided demand and profit curves to adjust the Black Friday price of six flagship products in the store, using interactive sliders and graphs.
- Prepare advertisement posters for each product by calculating the discount percentage (auto-graded math worksheet)
- The simulation concludes with students comparing actual Black Friday sales results (slightly different from the expected).
- As a reflective task, students write a letter to a friend who manages another department store, sharing insights on pricing strategies for maximizing profits in next year's Black Friday sale.
- Teachers can optionally show a leaderboard showing the profit earned by each student.
The lab is highly engaging, featuring auto-graded interactive worksheets, data analysis tasks, and a competitive pricing simulation. Students are challenged to think strategically about pricing, and balancing multiple variables to achieve their profit goals.
This activity is designed to enhance students' understanding of pricing strategies, mathematical applications in business, and the dynamics of Black Friday sales in a hands-on and interactive manner.
Who this course is for
The activity is very useful in teaching basic business concepts to middle school, high school, and college students.
Introduction (29 Minutes)
This is a pre-survey to understand the existing knowledge of students on the key concepts - Demand, Revenue and Profit.
Sub Activities
- Review Questions
In this reading activity, students will read about Demand, Revenue, and Profit.
Sub Activities
- Current Prices & Profits
Students will read and understand the concept of Revenue and Profit curves.
Sub Activities
- Sample Demand Curve
Black Friday Pricing & Sales (34 Minutes)
Sub Activities
- Air Fryer
- Toaster Oven
- Television
- Cell Phone
- Men's Winter Coat
- Women's Winter Coat