II. The Key Concept Of Chap.5
1. Variable cost
2. Fixed cost
3. Mixed Costs
4. High-low method
III. Problem solving
1. What is Blue Nile's strategy for success in the marketplace? Does the company rely primarily on a customer intimacy, operational excellence, or product leadership customer value proposition? What evidence from the 10-K supports your conclusion?
2. What business risks does Blue Nile face that may threaten its ability to satisfy stockholder expectations? What are some examples of control activities that the company could use to reduce these risks? Are some of the risks faced by Blue Nile difficult to reduce through control activities? Explain.
3. Is Blue Nile a merchandiser or a manufacturer? What information contained in the 10-K supports your answer?
4. (a) Using account analysis, would you label cost of sales and selling, general, and administration expenses as variable, fixed, or mixed costs? Why?
5. Fill in the blanks in the table above based on information contained in the 10-K. Using the high-low method, estimate the variable and fixed cost elements of the quarterly selling, general, and administrative expenses. Express Blue Nile’s variable and fixed selling, general, and administrative expenses in the form Y=a+bX, where X is net sales.
6. Prepare a contribution format income statement for the third quarter of 2005 assuming that Blue Nile’s net sales were $45500 and its cost of sales as a percentage of net sales remained unchanged from the prior quarter.
7. How would you describe Blue Nile's cost structure? Is blue Nile's cost of sales as a percentage of sales higher or lower than competitors with bricks and mortar jewelry stores?
IV. Conclusion
There are so many risk factors for Blue Nile, but main risk factors are below.
Company
Customer
Competitor
ETC
1. Supply of diamonds
2. Online distribution
3. Supply chain management
4. Demand of
diamonds
5. Excessive Competition
6. Changing rule
(Accounting & Law)
(1) Supply of diamonds
- Risk : A majority of the world’s supply of rough diamonds is controlled by a small number of diamond mining firms. As a result, any decisions made to restrict the supply of rough diamonds by these firms to BlueNile’s suppliers could substantially impair the ability to acquire diamonds at commercially reasonable prices. If BlueNile is unable to acquire diamonds at commercially reasonable prices, costs may exceed forecasts, gross margins and operating results may suffer and competitive position could be damaged.
- Controlling activities: Difficult to reduce by controlling activities. Blue Nile can make a contract that promises stable supply of diamonds and fine jewelry, but it will be difficult.
(2) Online distribution
- Risk : Purchasers of diamonds and fine jewelry may not choose to shop online because online distribution channel has a lot of inconvenience itself. For example, consumers want to physically handle and examine products, especially when they buy luxury products such as diamonds. Also, they concern about the security of online transactions and the privacy of personal information. They have to wait until the product is delivered and if the product is unsatisfying their expectation or has a defect itself, consumers have to return or exchange items, which will cause huge inconvenience for them
- Controlling activities: In order to provide a high quality customer experience, Blue Nile has to continue to invest substantial amounts of resources in our web site development

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