Molly goes shopping at Publix, picks up 25 items that she needs for the week, and is quickly on her way. Publix, being an intermediary, makes it possible for Molly to buy all of her items in one place with only one transaction instead of ordering each item separately from 25 different manufacturers. Even though marketing intermediaries may sometimes cause headaches for manufacturers, they are here to stay because intermediaries:
A. make the channel of distribution more efficient.
B. have a higher success rate because they are franchises.
C. cause less channel conflict. can avoid the "supply chain management" fallacy.
D. are always "channel captains".

Symantec corp., located in cupertino, california, is one of the world's largest producers of security and systems management software. the company's consolidated balance sheets for the 2009 and 2008 fiscal years included the following ($ in thousands): current assets: receivables, less allowances of $21,766 in 2009 and $24,089 in 2008 $ 838,010 $ 758,700 a disclosure note accompanying the financial statements reported the following ($ in thousands): year ended 2009 2008 (in thousands) trade accounts receivable, net: receivables $ 859,776 $ 782,789 less: allowance for doubtful accounts (8,938) (8,990) less: reserve for product returns (12,828) (15,099) trade accounts receivable, net: $ 838,010 $ 758,700 assume that the company reported bad debt expense in 2009 of $2,000 and had products returned for credit totaling $3,230 (sales price). net sales for 2009 were $6,174,800 (all numbers in thousands).required: what is the amount of accounts receivable due from customers at the end of 2009 and 2008? what amount of accounts receivable did symentec write off during 2009? what is the amount of symentec’s gross sales for the 2009 fiscal year? assuming that all sales are made on a credit basis, what is the amount of cash symentec collected from customers during the 2009 fiscal year?

Sharon had some insider information about a corporate takeover. she unintentionally informed a friend, who immediately bought the stock in the target corporation. the takeover occurred and the friend made a substantial profit from buying and selling the stock. the friend told sharon about his stock dealings, and gave her a pearl necklace because she "made it all possible." the necklace was worth $10,000, but she already owned more jewelry than she desired.

Zachary company produces commercial gardening equipment. since production is highly automated, the company allocates its overhead costs to product lines using activity-based costing. the costs and cost drivers associated with the four overhead activity cost pools follow: activities unit level batch level product level facility level cost $ 64,800 $ 27,730 $ 15,000 $ 154,000 cost driver 2,400 labor hrs. 47 setups percentage of use 11,000 units production of 780 sets of cutting shears, one of the company’s 20 products, took 240 labor hours and 7 setups and consumed 15 percent of the product-sustaining activities. required: (a) had the company used labor hours as a company wide allocation base, how much overhead would it have allocated to the cutting shears? (b) how much overhead is allocated to the cutting shears using activity-based costing? (c) compute the overhead cost per unit for cutting shears first using activity-based costing and then using direct labor hours for allocation if 780 units are produced. if direct product costs are $150 and the product is priced at 30 percent above cost for what price would the product sell under each allocation system? (d) assuming that activity-based costing provides a more accurate estimate of cost, indicate whether the cutting shears would be over- or underpriced if direct labor hours are used as an allocation base. explain how over-or undercosting can affect vaulker's profitability. (e) comment on the validity of using the allocated facility-level cost in the pricing decision. should other costs be considered in a cost- plus pricing decision? if so, which ones? what costs would you include if you were trying to decide whether to accept a special order?