I played the game three times before I successfully made a profit over $2.00. In order to be successful, I had to keep my prices closer to $.20 on days when the temperature was over 90 degrees and closer to $.12-$.15 on days when the temperature was between 50 and 70 degrees. In addition, I watched the number of cups I was selling per day in order to purchase the right amounts of ingredients for that day; some of the time I bought a little extra when the price of the lowest amount was cheaper to purchase multiples of that increment versus the larger amount. When the game drew to a close, I was watching closer to see just how many pitchers/cups my ingredients would make, so that I would not end up with a large amount of ingredients left over which would make my profit margin lower overall.
At times, it seemed as though I sold more when it was cooler weather compared to when it was hot weather. But, the profit margin was much better when I raised my prices for the hot days. When it is hotter out and people are thirsty the demand is higher for the cool product, thus I was able to charge more money and make more profits. I enjoyed this activity and the challenge that it provided. It was fun to figure out how many pitchers/cups of lemonade that I thought I might need for the day based upon the temperature and forecast, then to calculate the amount of ice I might use and not have too much of it go to waste at the end of the day.
