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Sellina’s Dried Fish Selling Business (Market Stall)

All references to currency are in Namibian Dollars (ND). All costs are based on real data.
# fish purchased to re-sell 150 / week
Cost of fish $2.00 / fish
Plastic bags $10.00 for 100 bags
(when customers buy fish, the purchased fish are put into bags)
Transport $60.00 per weekly trip to buy fish for selling
Market stall rent $12.00 / month
Sellina’s wage
(amount needed to live) 		She needs $100 per week to pay for her family’s food, clothes, school fees, and necessities
Work hours 5 days per week (8 hour days)
# fish sold to customers 150 / week (on average)
Reasonable profit margin
(for market stall fish sellers) 		20%

Using the above information, answer the following questions:

Sellina at the market

Sellina selling dried fish at her
market stall in Katima Mulilo.

  1. What is lowest price at which Sellina can sell 1 fish if she wants to make a profit considered reasonable for fish sellers in the market?
  2. Sellina actually sells her fish in the market for $4.50 / fish. What is her profit margin (a percentage)?
  3. What is Sellina’s wage per hour? Per day?
  4. Approximately how much does Sellina earn per month in Canadian dollars? (1 CD = 4.88 ND)

(No pressure: women in northern Namibia with little formal education and little familiarity with calculators can successfully complete these questions).

Bonus Question:

  1. Sellina’s uncle wants to hire her on Saturdays to clean fish. He will pay Sellina her fish selling wage. Sellina’s uncle has observed that it takes two workers 1 hour and 40 minutes to clean one crate of fish. He pays per crate of fish cleaned. What will Sellina earn (ND) per crate of fish she cleans?