To address the price situation of inventory.
If you are setting your prices based on what your last delivery costs, you will be out of business soon. You need to price your products based on what it is going to cost next week.
That is why gas prices are fast to go up, but slow to come down.
I have a friend who was stationed at a small military facility. They had a gas station for members and dependents. The gas was priced at what the military paid for it. It was a good deal if it was bought low and then prices rose, but took months to drain the tank if it was bought when gas prices were high and then went down.
You’re right about mandatory reading.
I like the example of fuel.
Say a gas station has 5000 gallon underground tanks. If there is an evacuation and each person who needs gas puts in 15 gallons, 333 people can fill up their car. Assuming the tank is completely full to begin with.
Statistically, there is one gas station per 2880 citizens. But, in this town, there are only 20 stations for 100,000 people. Assuming an evacuation of a town of 100,000 put 2 to a car. 20% of them needed gas. That’s 20,000 people who get 12 gallons each. That’s 240,000 gallons of gas but the available fuel in town is only 100,000 gallons. (twenty stations, 5000 gallons each) That means the first 8300 cars get filled up and 11,700 people get to ride out the storm in their cars.
Or, The station owner changes the price to $8 a gallon. The first 8300 people get 4 gallons of gas, then the next 11,700 get 4 gallons of gas. They all get to safety and to cheaper gas where they fill up. The stations now also have 20,000 gallons of gas available to police and emergency services who may need fuel immediately after the storm.
Such is the goodness of “price gouging”