Week 2: Lecture 2 — Unit Price and What a Discount Means

Covers Weeks 2 and 3 together — unit price and usable quantity, then where a reference price comes from and what a discount is actually measuring.

3 August 2026

This lecture spans two weeks of material because they’re one argument in two parts: Week 2 establishes that a lower unit price only helps if the quantity behind it gets used, and Week 3 asks the same question about discounts — a percentage only helps if you know, and trust, the number it was measured against.

Outline#

• unit price vs usable-quantity price, worked with the live calculator
• bulk buying as a bet against your own future waste
• where a “was $X” reference price actually comes from
• anchoring, in one sentence: the first number changes how you read every number after it
• what Assessment 1 (Deal Autopsy) is asking for, and why “marketing lied” is not a sufficient answer on its own