The majority of individuals operating within the business world either have situations in which they could benefit from the use of spreadsheets, or who use spreadsheets in the course of their daily work, whether for pay, in a club that they are responsible for, or as something that they simply enjoy. One of the things that I currently work with on a daily basis is a spreadsheet that I use to track the amount of items that I buy through storage unit auctions and sell on eBay. The use of the spreadsheet allows me to track gross expenditures, from the cost of the storage unit, to cleaning deposits, to associated cleaning supplies that I must purchase to fix up the items found in the storage units. I factor in each of these costs in setting the starting price on eBay and then I track the sale price in the spreadsheet, the cost of postage, and the amount of money received. In this manner, I am able to see how much of a profit I turn on each storage unit.
There are several constants that I use in the course of my spreadsheet, including the sales tax that I spend on each of the items and the fixed 5% discount I offer to any repeat customers in the form of a coupon code. This allows me to track to see who is a repeat customer, what type of stuff people of certain demographics are looking for, and the most popular items sold. This in turn influences the amount I am willing to bid for the next storage unit, and the next, and so on, allowing me to drastically increase my profits. I use the insert function option to complete automatic calculations; autosum is the primary function I use, though I do perform averages from time to time using this function. As much of what I do is addition within the spreadsheet itself, this makes the most sense.
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Relative reference refers to when a cell is copied from one place to another, and the formula adjusts for that movement. Absolute cell reference does not change, no matter where the formula is moved to, and mixed cell address is absolute when it refers to the row or the column, but the value of the row is relative to the location of the formula. I primarily use relative references, due to the need to continually add cells to the spreadsheet.
A what-if analysis could be potentially beneficial in the future, as it would enable me to determine what if storage unit x had item y, and how much that would boost the overall valuation of the unit itself. Still, given the current rate at which I am able to regain the invested funds and turn a profit, I see no need to delve into this at this time. This would require the creation of a second sheet in the spreadsheet to ensure that I did not affect my current totals.
