Quote the price for the wireless headphones on the floor
A customer typed a product into the query box (F2). The inventory sits in the big table on the left, but the price column comes BEFORE the product names — VLOOKUP can't look left across that gap. Use INDEX/MATCH in G2 to return the price.
Find product price from inventory
Practice using INDEX/MATCH to solve a real small business problem. By the end, you’ll know when to reach for it and how to structure the arguments correctly.
You manage a retail store's inventory. The system stores prices in column A — to the LEFT of the product names — which means VLOOKUP can't reach the price column from the product column. On the right, you've got a small "customer query" mini-table where customers type a product name (F2) and you return the price (G2). INDEX/MATCH handles look-left lookups that VLOOKUP can't.
In G2, return the price for the product the customer typed in F2. Use INDEX/MATCH against the inventory table (A2:A13 for price, D2:D13 for product). Exact match.
INDEX/MATCH is the two-function lookup combo that beats VLOOKUP at flexibility. MATCH finds the position of a value in a single column, then INDEX returns the cell at that position from another range. It can look left, right, up, or down, and survives column inserts that would break VLOOKUP.
INDEX(return_column, MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_column, 0))Try the formula first. Hints cost CP for a reason.