Official scenario · Retail
The lemonade stand
Your first business fits on a folding table
Set your price, make the right number of glasses for the weather, and win over passersby. The perfect scenario to discover Stratilead in 30 minutes.
Audience: Anyone from high school up; ideal for a first try
Overview
The story
It's summer. With €30 in savings, you open a lemonade stand on Main Street. Every morning, you check the weather forecast and decide on your price, how many glasses to make and your advertising.
Careful: lemonade doesn't keep. Any glasses still unsold in the evening are thrown away.
What you'll learn
- The margin per glass and the day's profit
- The link between price and the number of customers
- The cost of unsold glasses and the cost of running out
Learning objectives
- Calculate a margin and a simple profit
- Understand that price affects the number of customers
- Weigh the cost of unsold glasses against the cost of turning customers away
- Adapt your decisions to new information (the weather forecast)
Main decisions
3 decisions at the most complete level; the simpler levels automate some of them.
Sales
Price and number of glasses to make.
- Price per glass
- Glasses prepared
Advertising
- Today's advertising
Difficulty levels
- 1. BeginnerNo advertising or storms, €2 spot rental, no credit from the lemon seller: just prices and quantities.
- 2. StandardAll decisions and all events.
Market modes
- Parallel markets (each company faces virtual competitors)
- Shared market (companies compete for the same customers)
Concepts covered
- Margin
- The difference between a product's selling price and its cost.
- price − cost
- Revenue
- Total sales, before taking away expenses.
- quantity sold × price
- Profit (bottom line)
- What's left of revenue once all expenses are paid.
- Cash
- The money actually available in the cash box.
- Unsold goods
- Products made but not sold. For a perishable product, that's a pure loss.
- Price elasticity
- A measure of how customers react to a price change: when the price goes up, how many customers walk away?
Play “The lemonade stand” with your class
Create the session, project the code: your participants join from their phones, with no account.
Want to adapt this scenario to your class? Read the creation guide and the format reference.