Some ways a good purchaser would be able to lower costlunit. o If a buyer has multiple locations, he can aggregate all those locations' purchasing needs into a single bulk supply order to take advantage of economies of scale savings. 0 Wherever possible, a buyer could swap lower-cost materials. 0 A purchaser should be on the outlook for a different supplier offering better deal. . Automation can be used into the purchase process in some cases. . It would be a good idea to investigate outsourcing manufacturing to a country with lower material and labour costs. Other factors gbesides unit cost) which affect the total cost? Cost of a single unit produced by the company is called the unit cost. It is calculated by adding the variable costs and fixed costs of a product and then by diving it with the total number of units produced. Total costs are the sum of all the costs that a rm has spend to produce the products. Other factors which can affect the total cost of a product besides the unit cost can be: 1 Overhead costs The costs which are above than the direct costs of the product are called overhead costs. They can affect the total cost of the product. 2 Extra packaging Packaging can affect the total costs directly. These days the cost of packaging is increased. Many brands provide their products in beautiful glass jars or boxes but this increase their costs. 3 Freight The cost concerned with the moving ofthe raw material to the production site and then finished goods to the consumers, this all comes at a price known as freight. The fright prices can affect the total costs of the product. 4 Other factors Other factors that affect the total costs of the product can be quality testers of the product, taxes, specialists, wastage related to the product, licenses etc. Question: From above, describe how they may affect the total cost. '2