Statistics in the Hardware Store
Statistics can be used in a variety of ways in a hardware store. Because it is a retail business, the main reason for the use of statistics for decision making that will help the business financially prosper. They are used to determine what products customers want and need and how much of each item to keep in stock. Statistics are used answer important questions like when customers are going to purchase and how much they are going to spend (Boatwright, Borle, & Kadane, 2003). They are also are used in pricing models for the merchandise, in the marketing strategies of the store (for example, determining who the target customer is), and almost every other aspect of the store's operation.
A hardware store has many uses for descriptive statistics. The owners and managers need to know what the data look like in order to make informed decisions. One example would be products to have in stock. If the store determines the average products that sell the most, they know which items should have the most stock (and have their stock replaced). For example, if an average (arithmetic mean) of one hammer is sold per month, but, on average (arithmetic mean),...
One example would be a customer satisfaction survey. Because the hardware store managers feel that they need feedback from their customers, they choose to have the cashiers ask a few customers about their shopping experience. A few customers are asked at the register how satisfied they were on a scale of one (very dissatisfied) to five (very satisfied), and the management generalized the answers to the entire shopping population. Because 95% of customers said they were very satisfied, the store management assumed that they were doing a good job and meeting the needs of their customers (and hoped to maintain profits). The store management can generalize the results because it is assuming that the (sample of) people who were chosen to answer the question represent the larger population of shoppers (since not all shoppers were asked). The management has no reason to think that the shoppers who were asked were…
