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Commission Unit 10 > Lesson 4 of 9

Example 1: The Stettnisch family's house was sold for $300,000. How much money will they have after they pay their real estate agent a 5% commission?
Analysis:  Commission is paid to an employee or company as an incentive to sell more. A commission is generally a percentage of sales. The real estate agent was hired by the Stettnisch family to sell their house for a 5% sales commission.
Solution: ($300,000)*(0.05) = $15,000 and $300,000 - $15,000 = $285,000
Answer: The Stettnisch family will have $285,000.00 after they pay their real estate agent.

A commission may be paid in addition to a salary or in lieu of a salary. However, in this lesson we will compute straight commission only. Let's look at some more examples of straight commission.


Example 2: A stock broker receives a commission of 11% for selling annuities to her clients. If she sells $50,000 in annuities, how much commission will she earn?
Solution: ($50000)*(.11) = $5,500
Answer: The stock broker will earn $5,500.00.


Example 3: The Jones family purchases $350,000 in life insurance from an insurance broker. How much will they pay the insurance broker if she charges a 0.5% commission?
Solution: ($350000)*(0.005) = $1,750.
Answer: The Jones family will pay their insurance broker a commission of $1,750.00.


Example 4: A car salesman earns a 3% commission on sales. If he sells a car for $27,990, how much commission will he earn?
Solution:  ($27,990)*(0.03) = $839.70
Answer: The car salesman will earn a commission of $839.70.

In Examples 1 through 4, a commission can be earned or paid, depending on who is the seller and who is the client. Other industries that use commissions as sales incentives include: travel agents, retail employees, pharmaceutical sales reps and computer sales reps.


Summary: Commission is an amount of money paid to an employee or company as an incentive to sell more. A straight commission is a percentage of sales.

Exercises

Directions: Each problem below involves straight commission. Solve each problem below by entering a dollar amount with cents. Do not enter a comma in your answer. For each exercise below, click once in the ANSWER BOX, type in your answer and then click ENTER. After you click ENTER, a message will appear in the RESULTS BOX to indicate whether your answer is correct or incorrect. To start over, click CLEAR.

1. A computer salesman earns a 5.5% commission on each sale. If he sells 5 computers in one week for a total of $15,500, how much commission does he earn?
ANSWER BOX:  $

RESULTS BOX:


2. The Chen family sold their house through a real estate agent for $330,000. If the real estate agent gets a 4.5% commission, how much will the Chen family have to pay her?
ANSWER BOX:  $

RESULTS BOX:


3. A pharmaceutical sales rep receives an 3.5% commission for selling medication to physicians. If he sells $22,500 of medication, then how much commission will he earn?
ANSWER BOX:  $

RESULTS BOX:


4. A department store pays an interior designer a 25% commission for sales. How much will the department store have to pay the interior designer if her weekly sales are  $1,875?
ANSWER BOX:  $

RESULTS BOX:


5. A wholesale food rep earns a 3.25% commission on sales. If her annual sales is $35,000, how much commission will she earn?
ANSWER BOX:  $

RESULTS BOX:



Consumer Math Lessons
Percent and Proportions
Discount and Sale Price
Simple Interest
Commission
Sales Tax
Percent Change
Practice Exercises
Challenge Exercises
Solutions

Related Activities
Interactive Puzzles
Printable Worksheets
Percent Goodies Game

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Last Modified 14 May 2012