| Back | Marie's Math Interview Interview with Diamant   Diamant owns a shop in which she sells arts and crafts. She has lots of beautiful gadgets. It’s located under my house in Jounieh.   I interviewed Diamant for this project, and here is a summary of what she had to say. Since she sells arts and crafts, the best season for sales is actually during the Christmas period. Tourists in the summer are also a source of good revenue. During dead seasons (when sales are low,) Diamant travels abroad, mainly to the United States and Canada to purchase new articles for her shop, or to attend some handcraft conventions. While abroad, she gets ideas for various gifts. Sometimes she buys the gadgets, and sometimes she has them done here in Lebanon. This she decides based on mathematical calculations. Here she compares the cost of purchasing and shipping a product to the cost of manufacturing it here in Lebanon. Of course, she will then go with the cheaper alternative. Some ways in which she uses Math are the following: On an invoice there are usually lots of figures such as: quantities shipped, unit prices, totals, as well as discounts sometimes… In order to price the goods received, she will take the unit price, deduct any discount given her by the upplier, and add a certain percentage that would cover her profits, as well as her expenses. Sometimes the suppliers suggest a selling price. Then she might decide to give special discounts to certain valued customers. When a customer pays she then must subtract in order to calculate the change to give back! Sometimes they pay me with a check; she must then add to figure out her balance at the bank. She uses the totals on the invoice to figure out how much she must pay the supplier. Then she must check her bank account. Does she have enough to cover the payment? At the end of each month, she compares total sales (addition) to total expenses (addition) to find out if she has a profit or a loss for that month. This helps her decide on a strategy for the next month. One thing you can always say about Diamant’s: She sells good quality articles at a good price! | Back |