Variation in sales

To better understand the imderlying causes of sales differences, it may be desirable to relate sales differences as much as possible back to store descriptors. To do this, we correlated store distance measmes based on sales differences with the store descriptor variables temperature, ethnicity, location, store type and size. We find these descriptors as a group explain 85-89% of the variation in sales differences, with temperature being by far the most significant variable. We also foimd that, contrary to popular belief, store size and location had little impact on sales patterns. Details of this analysis can be found in Fisher and Rajaram (2000). 

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