When marking up a specific line of household items for resale, a retailer computes its markup as 40% of cost. For purposes of estimating ending inventory using the gross margin method, what percentage is applied to sales when estimating cost of goods sold?

 When marking up a specific line of household items for resale, a retailer computes its markup as 40% of cost. For purposes of estimating ending inventory using the gross margin method, what percentage is applied to sales when estimating cost of goods sold?
40
71
60
29

Answer

71

 You Answered Correctly!
The gross margin method applies the cost to sales ratio to sales in order to derive an estimate of cost of goods sold. Subtracting the resulting estimate of cost of goods sold from the cost of goods available for sale yields an estimate of ending inventory without counting the items. This firm determines the selling price to be 140% of cost because the markup is 40% of cost. Cost plus markup yields selling price. Therefore, the cost to sales ratio is 1.00/1.40 or .71.