A Plackett-Burman Experiment to Increase Supermarket Sales of a National Magazine

Gordon H. Bell (), Johannes Ledolter () and Arthur J. Swersey ()
Additional contact information
Gordon H. Bell: LucidView, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
Johannes Ledolter: Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, and Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Arthur J. Swersey: Yale School of Management, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Interfaces, 2009, vol. 39, issue 2, 145-158

Abstract: This paper describes and discusses a Plackett-Burman experiment aimed at increasing supermarket sales of a top-selling national magazine. The experiment involved 10 factors relating to in-store advertising and the location of the magazine within the store. We discuss issues including choice of factors, alternative designs, sample-size determination (number of test stores and the length of the test period), and the analysis of the resulting data. We show the large benefits that accrued from our approach of testing many factors simultaneously compared to the common industry practice of sequentially testing one factor at a time. We also discuss the potential opportunities of applying this approach to other service problems.

Keywords: multifactor experiments; Plackett-Burman designs; retail testing; supermarket operations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:39:y:2009:i:2:p:145-158

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