An Empirical Analysis of In-Store Product Placement and Sales Volume Across Product Categories
Abstract
Product Positioning plays a key role in influencing the sales of different products. The goal of the study is to determine whether product placement, particularly the front of the store, aisle, and end-cap, majorly have an impact on sales volume of product categories, including clothing, food, and electronics. The study uses a dataset of 1001 observations obtained from Kaggle. This contains both quantitative and categorical data. ANOVA tests, descriptive statistics, followed by effect size and Bonferroni tests, were used to further analyse the significance of relationships. The results show that product positioning has a significant impact on mainly clothing items placed at the front of the store. However, product positioning does not play a role in impacting the sales volume of electronics and food items. The findings reflect that visibility and traffic flow increase clothing sales at the front of the store. In comparison, electronics are bought based on specifications and brand preferences, so they require prior decision-making. Moreover, food items are planned purchases based on routine or need-based, which limits the effect of product positioning. This suggests that customer behaviour while purchasing a product plays a crucial role in the sales of these product categories as well. Retailers should place display places more strategically so that products like clothing, which require visibility for higher sales, and optimise shelf-space for food and electronics, which are bought based on customer needs.
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