Graphic communication in the retail setting

Increasing salesforce productivity is a major concern to retailers. By keeping labor costs down and increasing sales a stable profit can be maintained. Presently graphic communication has been an untapped area in this field. Therefore this study was undertaken to determine if performance feedback can elicit selling motivation. A conceptual framework was developed from three theories. Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan's (1986) framework of selling; Churchill and Ford's (1977) concepts of strategy and effort; and Ilgen, Fisher, and Taylor's (1979) interworkings of feedback were combined into a conceptual model of salesforce performance. The sample consisted of 244 salespeople and department managers from a southeastern department store. There were five stores within the chain. The sample included departments common throughout the chain. Graphic communication was produced by using the compute program Prox-X-11, part of the SAS package. It is an adaptation of the Bureau of the Census X-11 seasonal adjustment program. It creates output containing an adjusted time series, screening for seasonality. The objective of this study was to determine if graphic communication would produce an increase in sales and hours between experimental and control groups. By using an Analysis of Variance, graphic communication was not found to increase either variable.