When one product is sold in variants, such as bottle sizes, managers must define "comparable" units.
If we use a standard, rather than an actual mix of sizes and product varieties, the result is price per statistical unit.
In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 51 percent responded that they found the "average price per unit" metric very useful in managing and monitoring their businesses, while only 16% found "price per statistical unit" very useful.
Research suggests that unit price information in supermarkets can lead shoppers to save around 17-18% when they are educated on how to use it, but that this figure drops off over time.
Unit price is a common form of valuation in sales contract for goods sold in bulk purchasing.
"[1] Many brands or product lines include multiple models, versions, flavors, colors, sizes, or — more generally – stock-keeping units (SKUs).
Alterations in mix – such as a relative increase in the sale of larger versus smaller ice cream tubs at retail grocers, for example – will affect average unit price, but not price per statistical unit.
[1] Price per statistical unit Procter & Gamble and other companies face a challenge in monitoring prices for a wide variety of product sizes, package types, and product formulations.
The advantage of a statistical case is that its contents can approximate the mix of SKUs the company actually sells.
[1] Whereas a statistical case of liquid detergent will be filled with whole bottles, in other instances a statistical unit might contain fractions of certain packaging sizes in order for its total contents to match a required volumetric or weight total.
[1] Statistical units are composed of fixed proportions of different SKUs.