This kind of question has been asked on the forum before as well, but the doubts I have regarding it are not being resolved by the answers provided in those threads hence posting this as a new question.
The solution given in the book does as follows :- $1000*CP=800*SP$, where CP is the cost price of 1 gram and SP is the selling price of 1 gram from that the author did $SP/CP=1000/800$ which is 25% profit
My doubts :-
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Why are we writing $1000*CP$ and not $800*CP$ to calculate his total cost. If he is selling 800 grams, shouldn't his cost also be measured for 800 grams only?
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Secondly, even if I take that $1000*CP$ as given in the solution to be the total cost and $800*SP$ as the total selling price. In that case why are we equating these 2 things, since as per the question it is given that the shopkeeper claims that the total selling price is same as total cost price but at the same time we know that he is dishonest, so obviously they won't be equal.
I am really confused on these 2 statements
Best Answer
The shopkeeper buys $1$ kg for some amount of money. He sells $800$ g for that same amount of money. Money-wise the shopkeeper has broken even. But he still has $200$ g of unsold item. This $200$ g that can still be sold represents his profit.
The shopkeeper will sell the last $200$ g at the same rate (presumably) as the first $800$ g, thus bringing $25\%$ of what he brought in for the initial $800$ g sold.