Wheels Inc. is a manufacturer of bicycles sold through retail bicycle shops in the southeastern United States. The company has two sales people that do more than just sell the product-they manage relationships with the bicycle shops to enable them to better meet the consumers' needs. The company's sales reps visits the shop several times per year, often for hours at a time. The owner of wheels is considering expanding to the rest of the country and would like to have distribution through 1000 bicycle shops. To do so, Howe the company would have to hire more salespeople. Each sales person earn $40,000 plus 2 percent commission on all sales. Another alternative is to use the services of sales agents instead of its own sales force. Sales agents would be paid 5 percent of sales. a) determine the number of sales people Wheels need if it has 1000 bicycle shop accounts that need to be called on four time per year. Each sales call lasts approximately 2.5 hours, and each sales rep has approximately 1,250 hours per year to devote to customers. b) At what level of sales would it be more cost efficient for Wheels to use to sales agents compared with its own sales force? To determine this consider the fixed and variable costs for each alternative. What are the pros and cons of using a company's own sales force over independent sales agents?
Wheels Inc. is a manufacturer of bicycles sold through retail bicycle shops in the southeastern United States. The company has two sales people that do more than just sell the product-they manage relationships with the bicycle shops to enable them to better meet the consumers' needs. The company's sales reps visits the shop several times per year, often for hours at a time. The owner of wheels is considering expanding to the rest of the country and would like to have distribution through 1000 bicycle shops. To do so, Howe the company would have to hire more salespeople. Each sales person earn $40,000 plus 2 percent commission on all sales. Another alternative is to use the services of sales agents instead of its own sales force. Sales agents would be paid 5 percent of sales.
a) determine the number of sales people Wheels need if it has 1000 bicycle shop accounts that need to be called on four time per year. Each sales call lasts approximately 2.5 hours, and each sales rep has approximately 1,250 hours per year to devote to customers.
b) At what level of sales would it be more cost efficient for Wheels to use to sales agents compared with its own sales force? To determine this consider the fixed and variable costs for each alternative. What are the pros and cons of using a company's own sales force over independent sales agents?
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