During a power outage, a retail store is likely to exhibit which cost of downtime profile?

Question

Options

• ACost of downtime per hour remains the same.
• BCost of downtime per hour increases with time.
• CCost of downtime per hour decreases with time.
• DCost of downtime per hour is exponential with time.

• A
  73% (19)
• B
  15% (4)
• C
  4% (1)
• D
  8% (2)

Explanation

A retail store loses roughly the same amount of revenue each hour it cannot operate - customers cannot transact, but the financial impact doesn't compound or diminish over time the way it might in other industries, making the flat (constant) profile the correct model. Option B (increasing cost) would describe a scenario with cascading consequences, such as a manufacturing line where backlogs pile up or a financial exchange where queued transactions accumulate penalties - none of which apply to retail. Option C (decreasing cost) would imply the outage matters less over time, which would only make sense if customers simply stop trying and the business effectively shuts down permanently. Option D (exponential cost) fits critical infrastructure like hospitals or data centers, where failures multiply rapidly and interdependent systems collapse in sequence.

Memory tip: Picture a cash register that earns a flat $X per hour - during a power outage it earns $0 every hour, uniformly. "Flat store, flat cost."

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