Spot a price increase hidden by a smaller pack

Compare supplier quotes by unit cost, not pack price, and handle ambiguous SKUs and zero-price percentages explicitly.

The unchanged pack price

A previous tea quote contains 12 items for 72.00. A new quote contains 10 items for the same 72.00. The pack price looks unchanged, but the unit cost rises from 6.00 to 7.20.

The change is (7.20 − 6.00) ÷ 6.00 × 100 = 20%. Always compare the same underlying item, currency and pricing basis.

Review before calculating

If one SKU appears twice, the software cannot know which pack the supplier intended. Our comparison holds that group for review rather than choosing the first row. Blank prices are invalid; a valid zero price is different, but percentage change from zero remains undefined.

Try both kinds of pack change

The synthetic example also changes a bag quote from 45.00 for 15 items to 36.00 for 12 items. Both are 3.00 per item, so the unit cost is unchanged even though the pack changed. Added and removed rows describe file membership only.

Download the previous quote and the updated quote. Map their columns before comparing and review the full exported report.