Expert: Josh - 7/19/2006

Question
I need to calculate average cookie sales for different areas of the countrey. Example the central division has three subdivisions selling 1908 cookies for six months. This division totals 858 stores. How do I create a formula in excel to calculate this?

Answer
Val,

You need to clarify what you are saying.
The central division consists of three subdivisions.
You seem to be saying that there are no sales figures available for the individual subdivisions.
My understanding is that the three subdivisions jointly produce a combined sales figure of 1908 cookies in a six month period. There is no mention of exactly how many cookies are sold each month.

I'm confused about two things.

Firstly, where does the 858 stores fit into the scheme of a central division comprising three subdivisions. What exactly is the relationship between the stores and subdivisions. Where are the corresponding sales figure?

Secondly, define "average". What exactly are you trying to compute? Average for each of the subdivisions or is it something else? You need to tell me what figures you have available.

Suppose that
store number 1 to 300 belong to subdivision 1;
store number 301 to 500 belong to subdivision 2;
store number 501 to 858 belong to subdivision 3.
If you have the sales figures for each of the 858 stores.

We can compute the average sales figure for subdiv 1 by adding the sales figures for store 1 through to store 300, then divide the sum by 300.

We can compute the average sales figure for subdiv 2 by adding the sales figures for store 301 through to store 500, then divide the sum by 200.

We can compute the average sales figure for subdiv 3 by adding the sales figures for store 501 through to store 858, then divide the sum by (858-501+1).

Is this what you want. I'm not sure.

You need to decide how you want to aggregate the figures (how you put them into categories) and whether you are interested in the sales figure, for instance, in a quarter, or something along those lines.