How SCOPE 2 works
Five people form one supply chain. Every chain in the room competes in the same market. You only ever see your own worksheet and the orders from the person next to you, which is exactly the problem real supply chains have.
The whole game in one picture
Three retailers, one market. Watch what a price actually buys you.
The chain
Goods travel down. Orders and money travel up. Each person makes their own decisions and cannot see anyone else's.
You are a Retailer. A simple example.
Each unit costs you $8: you buy at $7 from your Wholesaler and pay $1 handling when it arrives.
- The tutor announces the market: "This round, customers want 6,000 units." There are 12 retailers in the room.
- You pick your selling price and submit it secretly, say $12.00. Nobody sees anyone else's price until everyone has chosen.
- The tutor reveals your share. A lower price wins more customers. At $12.00 you win 510 units.
- You earn 510 × ($12.00 − $8.00) = $2,040 profit this round.
- You restock by ordering from your Wholesaler for next round. It arrives one round later, never the same round.
- Careful: every unsold unit on your shelf costs you $0.32 each round, so do not over-order.
So should you just go cheap?
No. This is the whole game. Same round, same 6,000 customers, three different prices.
| Your price | Units you win | Profit per unit | Your profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.50 - the cheap one | 580 | $2.50 | $1,450 |
| $12.00 - the middlebest | 510 | $4.00 | $2,040 |
| $14.50 - the greedy one | 200 | $6.50 | $1,300 |
Go too cheap and you sell plenty but earn almost nothing on each one. Go too dear and you keep a fat margin on hardly any units, because the highest price in the room is only guaranteed a small floor of customers. The winner is usually in the middle, and it moves every round depending on what everyone else does.
The other four roles
Everyone upstream sells at a fixed price and makes exactly 50 cents a unit. Their skill is not pricing. It is deciding how much to hold and how much to order.
Wholesaler
Buys at $5.50, pays $1 handling, sells to the Retailers at $7.00.
Distributor
Buys at $4.00, pays $1 handling, sells to the Wholesaler at $5.50.
Manufacturer
Buys raw at $2.50, pays $1 handling, sells finished goods at $4.00.
Supplier
Buys raw at $1.00, pays $1 handling, sells to the Manufacturer at $2.50.
Three things that catch everyone out
Order today, receive at the start of next round. If you wait until your shelf is empty before ordering, you are already one round too late. This single delay is what creates the wild swings you will see.
Every unit left over at the end of a round costs you money, every round, for the rest of the game. 1,000 spare units on a Wholesaler's shelf is $260 gone per round. Being "safe" is not free.
At the final whistle your leftover stock is worth nothing and you are charged what you paid for it. Plan the last few rounds so you finish close to empty, not comfortable.
How you win
Your score is your profit: what you sold, minus what you paid, minus holding, minus anything written off at the end. Your chain's score is everyone's profit added together, so a Retailer who wins big by starving their own Wholesaler has not helped anyone. The chain with the highest total wins the room.