Dime Sale Strategy Calculator

Dime sales (or dimesales) encourage customers to buy a product without hesitating too long, since the price goes up with every unit that is purchased. In a dime sale, the seller sets a base price that lasts until X units are sold. And after X units have been sold, the cost per item increases by y dollars for each additional one sold until a predetermined price cap is reached. Often, X = 1 and y = $0.10, hence the name "dime sale."

If you want to use a dime sale tactic to sell more items quickly and you have a set revenue goal in mind, you can use the dime sale strategy calculator below to see your options for the base price, the price increment, and how many items must be sold before the price goes up.

To use the calculator, enter your goal for the average earnings per item after selling a certain number of items, as well as your maximum selling price. The calculator will output three options for setting up a dime sale. An example is explored below.

Goal: Average at least $
per unit on units sold

Maximum selling price: $

  

Example 1: Ken sells a computer program that can be downloaded from his website. Ideally, he'd like to make $4000 in sales from selling 150 copies of the program, or equivalently, $26.67 per sale. From his market research, he knows that he cannot charge more than $45 for the program, since that's the maximum price charged by one of his competitors. Ken believes that a dime sale would help boost his revenue and generate more interest in his product.

Using the calculator above, he would input 26.67 for the average price per unit, 150 for the number of units sold, and 45 for the maximum price.

Mathematically, there are infinitely many dime sale setups that will allow Ken to reach his goal. Three possible strategies are suggested by the calculator:

(1) Set the base price at $11.25. After the first item is sold, the cost jumps by $0.25 cents for each additional item sold until the price reaches its maximum of $45. The total revenue from selling 150 copies is $4455.00

(2) Set the base price at $23.00. After 15 items are sold, the cost jumps by $0.10 cents for each additional item sold until the price reaches its maximum of $45. The total revenue from selling 150 copies is $4368.00

(3) Set the base price at $30.00. After 75 items are sold, the cost jumps by $0.50 cents for each additional item sold until the price reaches its maximum of $45. The total revenue from selling 150 copies is $5407.50

Each of these setups allows Ken to reach his goal of $4000 on 150 sales. To explore more options, you can use the standard dime sale calculator and test different combinations of prices and increments.



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