What do you think is the average percentage a store like WalMart or Target makes on a product it sells?

Example: $200 Sony TV -> would it be $150 to Sony and $50 to WalMart/Target???

ymmv of course:

laptop-0-5%
mouse-5-30%
flash drive: 10%
ipod: 0%
headphones - 5%
store brand stuff - 20%-40%
printer-10%
food-10%
penny deals or Free stuff - -100% (FWers' favorite stuff)

these are guesses

items like professional hair products have 100% mark up. you pay the same price as in a salon.

FrugalFreak said:idohair said:items like professional hair products have 100% mark up. you pay the same price as in a salon.

Products like Nexus and Paul Mitchell you could only get in salon. I miss the gallon size apple pectin shampoo mom used to bring home.

My goodies as a kid were samples from hair wholesalers. Foldable Paul Mitchell mini-brushes, combs, files, pocket mirrors.target and grocery stores get them now because of diverters. who knows if they are the real thing though?

0AfterRebates said:WalMart: Gross margin, or sales left after subtracting the cost of goods sold, widened to 23.5 percent from 23 percent.

link

Net income was around 4%

ridn4free said:having worked in the letter of credit business for years, margins can very greatly. much larger than people realize

Yup, especially when the retailer gets back end spiffs for selling X amount of the manufacturer's items for a specific amount of time. I know this to be true in retail computers and computer accessories industry.

A friend of mine worked at a Best Buy years back, and their employee discount used to be something like cost + x%. He said their were some items where the employee discount price was actually higher than the retail price, like low-end dvd players that they sold as a loss leader. OTHOH, the price difference on stuff like cables and accessories was huge - several % percent markup.

And as stoned pointed out, COGAS (cost of goods sold) is only one part of the equation - it doesn't include the rest of the costs that retailers pay (rent, employees, utilities, shrinkage, advertising, ect). You can have a huge margin and still lose money if your expenses are high, or a small margin and be profitable if you have low expenses and high volume. The other thing to consider is "turns" - how often a business turns over it's inventory. Grocery stores have a thin margin, but lots of turns, which helps make up for it.