St Patrick's Day Fruit Stand
Lab Description
In this engaging St. Patrick’s Day-themed business simulation, students take on the role of a pricing strategist at a bustling fruit stand. They start as cashiers, calculating customer bills manually, then transition to using spreadsheet formulas for efficiency. Finally, they take on a business decision-making role, adjusting prices through a trial-and-error approach to maximize profit.
This heuristic pricing method is widely used in real-world industries, such as retail, e-commerce, and airline pricing, where companies adjust prices based on demand, competition, and sales trends. Through this hands-on lab, students gain a real-world understanding of how businesses find the right price points to stay competitive and profitable.
What Students Will Learn:
Math & Business Fundamentals – Compute total sales manually and with formulas.
Spreadsheet Skills – Write formulas to automate calculations.
Pricing Strategies & Market Response – Adjust prices based on sales trends.
Supply & Demand – Observe how pricing affects customer purchasing behavior.
Profit Maximization – Experiment with pricing to find the best strategy.
Real-World Application – Learn how businesses optimize pricing using trial-and-error techniques.
Auto-Graded Activities – Students receive instant feedback, reducing teacher workload.
An auto-created leaderboard ranks students based on total profit, which the teacher can present for classroom competition.
How It Works:
Calculate Customer Bills – Students complete 10 transactions manually (9:00 - 9:15 AM).
Use Spreadsheet Formulas – Uncle Seamus updates prices, and students switch to automated calculations (9:15 - 9:30 AM).
Price Optimization Challenge – Students adjust prices for 6 time slots (9:30 - 11:00 AM) to find the best price per fruit.
Final Pricing & Competition – The chosen price is used for the remainder of the day (until 5 PM), and the student with the highest total profit wins!
This lab provides a real-world experience in business decision-making, teaching students the importance of data-driven pricing, logical adjustments, and strategic thinking. Perfect for business, personal finance, and economics courses! 
