Closeouts Overstocks; Liquidation Inventories the Numbers

When buying truckloads of surplus closeouts and overstock merchandise the price is a percentage of the wholesale cost. Liquidation purchases price can be confusing. If you are wanting to purchase a manifested truckload of surplus closeouts from K-Mart. A broker or trading company quotes you a price of 20%. You start to negotiate a price. If you can buy the load for 17% of the wholesale cost you save 15% on the price. It sounds like only 3% . The difference between 20 - 17 =3. That is not the way to calculate the percent savings
Here is an example:
wholesale cost of load $1000
X 20%
----------------
$ 200
$1000
X 17%
---------------------
$ 200 -- $170 =$30 is 15% of $200

That is how 3 percent is actually 15% when figuring what is the percentage saving between 20% of wholesale cost and 17% of wholesale cost.
Remember one or two points of wholesale costs is much higher than it appears.