A bicycle store costs $2750 per month to operate. The store pays an average of $45 per bike. The average selling price of each bicycle is $95. How many bicycles must the store sell each month to break even?
Let the number of bikes be b.
Set up our cost function, where it costs $45 per bike to produce
C(b) = 45b
Set up our revenue function, where we earn $95 per sale for each bike:
R(b) = 95b
Set up our profit function, which is how much we keep after a sale:
P(b) = R(b) - C(b)
P(b) = 95b - 45b
P(b) = 50b
The problem wants to know how many bikes we need to sell to break-even. Note: break-even means profit equals operating cost, which in this case, is $2,750. So we set our profit function of 50b equal to $2,750
50b = 2750
We type this equation into our search engine, and we get:
b = 55
Let the number of bikes be b.
Set up our cost function, where it costs $45 per bike to produce
C(b) = 45b
Set up our revenue function, where we earn $95 per sale for each bike:
R(b) = 95b
Set up our profit function, which is how much we keep after a sale:
P(b) = R(b) - C(b)
P(b) = 95b - 45b
P(b) = 50b
The problem wants to know how many bikes we need to sell to break-even. Note: break-even means profit equals operating cost, which in this case, is $2,750. So we set our profit function of 50b equal to $2,750
50b = 2750
We type this equation into our search engine, and we get:
b = 55