Essay on Direct and Indirect Signals of Retail Sales

An economic indicator is defined by Investopidea.com (n.d.) as “A piece of economic data, usually of macroeconomic scale, that is used by investors to interpret current or future investment possibilities and judge the overall health of an economy”. Below are six economic indicators that affect Apple Inc. and its business decisions and strategies.

Businesses give an analysis of the profit and sales also other business data to find a trend of popular sales and what is making the most money for the company. An example is if an item is usually sold out in days and making lots of profit and if an item is barely sales businesses would buy more of the popular product and less of the unwanted product.

Retail companies must keep close track of their operations to maintain profitability. Often, the sales data of each individual product is analyzed separately, which can be used to help set pricing and other sales strategies.

In the United States, their are about 1 million outlets (stores), and numerous amounts of online retailers that sell items to the public. The demand in this industry is primarily driven by spending and interest rates. Due to this fact economic health affects consumer confidence and spending. But overall there has been a consistent trend of sales in the sector as a whole. Overall in the United States, the industry has a combined revenue of about five trillion dollars. Revenue (in current trading dollars) for retail trade in the US is to forecasted to grow an annual compounded rate of five percent between 2015 and 2019. In addition, total United States retail sales increased 2.1 percent in the first ten months of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014.

The type of economic indicator that can best be used for business forecasting is the:

The retail industry is a sector of the economy that is comprised of individuals and companies

My professor Evie Adomait at the University of Guelph wrote an interesting book that I am currently reading now called Cocktail Economics. As you might have guessed the book informs people about economics but is set up in a way that is suitable even for a common man. As the author mentioned in the book her main goal of the book is to inform people who think they know about economics but are actually misinformed. The authors have added an interesting and fun tone throughout the book to keep the reader entertained. The author begins the book with a story, a common story that always takes place at a cocktail party, as you. might have guessed it by the title. The books goal is to entertain its readers and interest them in the idea of the economic thought process. The book Cocktail Party

Economic indicators refer to economic series statistical figures used to make future prediction economic activity in the organization or country. The economic indicators are useful in each organization since they measure specific economic parameters in the market and can be used to forecast the future market trends (Baumohl, 2016). For instance, the company like Disney uses these economic indicators to curb and minimizes the difficult economic situation that may arise. There are so many different types of the economic indicators used. In this case, the Disney Company will use the following economic indicators: consumer price index; productivity and cost; employment cost index; producer price index; consumer confidence

This is used as an indicator of the economic climate of that nation. This information is release each quarter for each nation and can be used to determine the growth of a nation either during a time of economic downturn or during a recession.

“Though stubbornly high unemployment and continued uncertainty over the prospects for job growth will continue to dampen the outlook for industry retail sales growth in 2012, the retail industry will still grow at a rate faster than many other industries. This year, retail industry sales will rise 3.4 percent to $2.53 trillion*, according to the National Retail Federation – slightly lower than the pace of 2011, in which sales grew 4.7 percent. Many economists estimate that real U.S. GDP will rise approximately 2.1 to 2.4 percent. Over the last 18 months, retailers have been on the forefront of the economic recovery – creating jobs, encouraging consumer spending, and investing in America,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay.

United States and Mexico have different types of economic indicators. An economic indicator a statistic used to measure future trends in a nation 's economy. For instance, the social and economic statistics distributed by authorize sources, for example, U.S. government divisions are pointers. Some popular economic indicators that will be discussed in the paper are, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, population, and standard of living. Each of these indicators is categories under leading, lagging, and coincident indicators. Leading economic indicator offers us some assistance with assessing where the economy is going. They foretell what is coming, such as moving from a top stage into a withdrawal, before it really happens. Lagging

The economy can produce an overwhelming and a multitude of goods and services every year. For example, Ford Motor Company produces hundreds of millions of cars. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the nation’s largest U.S.A multinational retail corporation, operates a chain discount department store and grocery market stores. Both companies have a large inventory list of all the goods and services that the system of production, distribution and consumption produces in any year that can be for all intents with endless purposes. However, the kind of year is the year that the economist looks for. The economic expert, which is an expert in receiving the total of goods and services, would not get very far from a large inventory data of all the goods and services

Chapter 7 and 8 from “A Guide to Everyday Economic Statistics” explains the value of prices, money, and interest rates alongside the value of stock prices and international trade. As a result, we will be able to grasp the concept of how the Consumer Price Index (CPI), how to use an estimate the inflation from the CPI, Producer Price Index (PPI), prime rate and how to measure the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and international value of the dollar in the stock market.

Industry: American Retailing Industry, for example, Target Corporation is an American retailing industry company, founded in 1902 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart.

Also known as “causal” models involve the identification of variables that can be used to predict another variable of interest. They are based on the assumption that the historical relationship between "dependent" and"independent" variables will remain valid in future and each independent variable is easy to predict. This form of analysis can take several months and is used for medium-term forecasts for products in their growth or maturity phase.