Identifying Demographics that Drive Goodwill’s Sales and Donations
Mentor 1
Anthony Ross
Mentor 2
Mark Kosfeld
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
24-4-2015 2:30 PM
End Date
24-4-2015 3:45 PM
Description
For every retailer, an appreciable understanding of their individual market is critical to locating new stores and achieving required sales. For Goodwill Industries of Southeast Wisconsin, not only must they understand the demographics that drive sales, but also the demographics that donate goods. The goal of my research was to discover what readily available demographics information could be linked to high or low sales and donations. Using the geographical information software called ArcGIS, I gathered a multitude of demographics data- such as median age, household income, annual spending, and education level- for all individuals within a selected radius of current Goodwill locations. A comprehensive correlation analysis within Microsoft Excel revealed what of this data is linked to Goodwill’s historical sales and donation volume data. There were many correlations that we expected to see; for example, we believed that higher donation volume would correlate with areas of higher income. However, no analysis strongly supported any of our expectations, even after controlling for adverse weather, stores in close proximity to each other, and immature (new) stores. In fact, all analyses that looked at surrounding populations as a whole did not reveal any strong relationships. Even still, this information is valuable to Goodwill because it demonstrates that any market analysis must use a nuanced evaluation of discrete groups of the surrounding populations. At the time that this summary was submitted, new methods of analysis were being explored, including a detailed breakdown of the populations surrounding each store.
Identifying Demographics that Drive Goodwill’s Sales and Donations
Union Wisconsin Room
For every retailer, an appreciable understanding of their individual market is critical to locating new stores and achieving required sales. For Goodwill Industries of Southeast Wisconsin, not only must they understand the demographics that drive sales, but also the demographics that donate goods. The goal of my research was to discover what readily available demographics information could be linked to high or low sales and donations. Using the geographical information software called ArcGIS, I gathered a multitude of demographics data- such as median age, household income, annual spending, and education level- for all individuals within a selected radius of current Goodwill locations. A comprehensive correlation analysis within Microsoft Excel revealed what of this data is linked to Goodwill’s historical sales and donation volume data. There were many correlations that we expected to see; for example, we believed that higher donation volume would correlate with areas of higher income. However, no analysis strongly supported any of our expectations, even after controlling for adverse weather, stores in close proximity to each other, and immature (new) stores. In fact, all analyses that looked at surrounding populations as a whole did not reveal any strong relationships. Even still, this information is valuable to Goodwill because it demonstrates that any market analysis must use a nuanced evaluation of discrete groups of the surrounding populations. At the time that this summary was submitted, new methods of analysis were being explored, including a detailed breakdown of the populations surrounding each store.
