How to Calculate the Percentage of Price Reduction in Excel

In this article, we will learn how to calculate the percentage of price reduction in Excel. This is a useful skill for comparing the original and discounted prices of products or services, and finding out how much money you can save by buying them at a lower price.

The percentage of price reduction is the ratio of the difference between the original price and the discounted price to the original price, expressed as a percentage. The formula for calculating the percentage of price reduction is:

Percentage of price reduction=Original price−Discounted price/Original price ​×100%

For example, if the original price of a product is $50 and the discounted price is $40, the percentage of price reduction is:

Percentage of price reduction=5050−40​×100%=20%

This means that the product is 20% cheaper than its original price.

Procedures

To calculate the percentage of price reduction in Excel, we can use the following steps:

1. Enter the original price and the discounted price of the product or service in two adjacent cells, such as A1 and B1.
2. In another cell, such as C1, enter the formula =(A1-B1)/A1*100 and press Enter. This formula will calculate the percentage of price reduction based on the values in A1 and B1.
3. Format the cell C1 as a percentage by clicking the Percentage button on the Home tab, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+%. This will display the result as a percentage with two decimal places, such as 20.00%.
4. You can copy and paste the formula and the formatting to other cells if you have more than one product or service to compare.

Example

Let’s see an example of how to calculate the percentage of price reduction in Excel using a real scenario. Suppose you are shopping online and you see the following table of prices for some items:

To calculate the percentage of price reduction for each item, follow these steps:

1. Copy and paste the table into Excel, starting from cell A1.
2. In cell D1, enter the formula =(B1-C1)/B1*100 and press Enter. This will calculate the percentage of price reduction for item A, which is 20%.
3. Format the cell D1 as a percentage by clicking the Percentage button on the Home tab, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+%. This will display the result as 20.00%.
4. Copy and paste the formula and the formatting to cells D2, D3, and D4. This will calculate the percentage of price reduction for items B, C, and D, which are 20%, 20%, and 20%, respectively.
5. You can add a label to the column D, such as “Percentage of Price Reduction”, to make the table more clear.

The final table will look like this:

Other Approaches

There are other ways to calculate the percentage of price reduction in Excel, such as using the PERCENTAGE function or the Format Cells dialog box. Here are some examples of how to use these approaches:

• Using the PERCENTAGE function: The PERCENTAGE function takes two arguments: the numerator and the denominator of a fraction, and returns the percentage value of that fraction. To use this function, we can enter the formula =PERCENTAGE(B1-C1,B1) in cell D1, and copy and paste it to other cells. This will give the same result as the previous formula, but without multiplying by 100.
• Using the Format Cells dialog box: The Format Cells dialog box allows us to customize the appearance of the cells, such as the number format, the decimal places, the alignment, the font, the color, etc. To use this dialog box, we can select the cells that we want to format, right-click on them, and choose Format Cells. Then, we can choose the Percentage category, and adjust the decimal places as we want. This will format the cells as percentages, but without entering any formula.