CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS ACTIVITY BASED COSTING Sinclair Company, a growing mail-order clothing and accessory company, is concerned about its growing expenses. It therefore examined its customer ordering patterns for the past year and identified four different types of customers, as illustrated in the following table. Sinclair sends catalogs and flyers to all its customers several times a year. Orders are taken by mail or over the phone. Sinclair maintains a toll-free number for customers to use when placing orders over the phone. Sinclair prides itself on the personal attention it provides shoppers who order over the phone. All purchases are paid for by check or credit card. Sinclair has a very generous return policy if customers are not satisfied with the merchandise received. Customers must pay return shipping charges, but their purchase price is then fully refunded. CUSTOMER 1 CUSTOMER 2 CUSTOMER 3 CUSTOMER 4 Initial sales $1,000 $1,000 $2,500 $3,000 Number of items returned 0 4 24 Dollar value of items returned SO $200 $500 $1,500 Number of orders per year 1 6 4 12 Number of phone orders per year 1 0 0 12 Time spent on phone placing orders 0.25 hour 0 0 2 hours Number of overnight deliveries 0 0 12 Number of regular deliveries 0 6 4 0 Prices are set so that cost of goods sold is on average about 75% of the sales price. Customers pay actual shipping charges, but extra processing is required for overnight deliveries. Sinclair has developed the following activity cost driver rates for its support costs: ACTIVITY ACTIVITY RATE per Cost Driver Process mail orders $5 per order Process phone orders $80 per hour Process returns $5 per item returned Process overight delivery requests $4 per request Maintain customer relations $50 per year (send catalogs and respond to customer comments or complaints) REQUIRED: a) Using activity-based costing, determine the yearly profit associated with each of the four customers described b) Comment on which customers are most profitable and why. c) What advice do you have for Sinclair regarding managing customer relationships with the different types of customers represented