Carmel Company has a frequent buyer program for its customers, where the customers can attain an "elite" level based on the number of orders and the total revenue of the orders. There are two elite levels: Platinum and Titanium. The benefits of elite membership include discounts and access to special customer service representatives who can resolve problems. The company has one full-time customer representative per 200 Titanium customers and one full-time customer representative per 2,000 Platinum customers. Customer representatives receive salaries plus bonuses of 1 percent of customer gross margin. Carmel spends 80 percent of its promotion costs on Titanium customers to encourage their loyalty. Customer Costs Total Titanium Platinum Number of customers 25,000 5,000 20,000 Average customer representative salary $ 68,000 $ 68,000 Promotion costs $ 2,850,000 Average gross margin per customer $ 1,590 $ 325 Required: a. Calculate the totals of the items below for both titanium and platinum customers, as well as the excess of gross margin over customer costs for each category. b. Which customers are more profitable?

a.Titanium = $2,890,500

Platinum = $5,185,000

b. Platinum is more profitable

Explanation:

The computation of given question is shown below:

For Titanium

Total gross margin = 5,000 × $1,590

= $7,950,000

Salaries and bonus of Customer representative = ($68,000 × 5,000 ÷ 200) + (1% × $7,950,000)

= $1,700,000 + $79,500

= $1,779,500

b.

Promotion cost = $2,850,000 × 80%

= $2,280,000

Excess of gross margin over customer costs = Total gross margin - Salaries and bonus of Customer representative - Promotion cost

= $7,950,000 - $1,779,500 - $2,280,000

= $2,890,500

For Platinum

Total Gross margin = 20,000 × $ 325

= $6,500,000

Salaries and bonus of Customer representative = ($68,000 × 20,000 ÷ 2,000) + (1% × $6,500,000 )

= $680,000 + $65,000

= $745,000

Cost of promotion = $2,850,000 × 20%

= $570,000

Since, 80% is allocated for promotion expenses of titanium so we assume 20% for Platinum

Excess of gross margin over customer costs = Total Gross margin - Salaries and bonus of Customer representative - Cost of promotion

= $6,500,000  - $745,000 - $570,000

= $5,185,000

B. Since, Platinum is higher than Titanium. So, Platinum is more profitable.  

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