ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Economy of scale

Hello there! So, have you ever heard the phrase "the more, the merrier"? That's kind of like economy of scale! It means that the more you have of something, the better it is for everyone involved.

Let me explain with an example. Imagine you have a lemonade stand. You can make one glass of lemonade at a time, and it takes you 5 minutes and costs 50 cents to make one glass. If you sell that glass for $1, you make a profit of 50 cents.

Now imagine that you buy a bigger container for your lemonade and can make 5 glasses at a time. It still takes 5 minutes and 50 cents to make the lemonade, but since you can make 5 glasses at once, it only takes you 1 minute per glass. You can sell each glass for $1 and make a profit of 50 cents per glass. But because you can make 5 glasses at a time, you can make $2.50 in just 5 minutes instead of $1.

This is what we call economy of scale. When you buy more lemonade, you can make more glasses faster and cheaper. This means you can sell more glasses and make more money in less time. It's kind of like buying wholesale instead of buying just one item at a time.

Economy of scale works for not just lemonade stands, but for businesses too. A company that makes a lot of products can make them faster and cheaper than a small company making the same products. This is because the big company can buy materials in bulk and use machines that can make more products at once. Since the big company can make and sell more products, they can charge less for each one and still make a profit.

So, that's basically what economy of scale is all about - the more you produce, the more you can sell, and the more money you can make. Pretty neat, huh?