Excel Problem Walmart Inc. has made historical sales data available for 45 stores located in different regions throughout the United States. Go to the student download page at http://www.pearsonhighered.com/romney and download the files labeled

“WalmartSales.csv” and “WalmartFeatures.csv”.

REQUIRED Using this data, compute the following descriptive statistics:

a. Central tendency: regardless of store, compute the mean and the median weekly sales for all departments and for each department individually. Choose one department that has a large difference between the median and the mean and discuss why they are so different and how using only one of the metrics could lead to a poor business decision.

b. Data spread: compute the minimum, maximum, and standard deviation for weekly sales for each department. Which department number has the greatest spread?
Why might it be important for a store manager to understand the different spreads of weekly sales for each department?

c. Data distribution: create a histogram for the weekly sales of departments 12 and 16.
What are the implications of the different distribution of sales for these two departments? Create one hypothesis for why you think these departments may have a different distribution.

d. Correlations: compute two correlations: (1) the correlation of weekly sales with temperature and (2) the correlation of weekly sales with fuel prices. Interpret what the correlation coefficient means for each correlation. Which variable, temperature or fuel prices, is more highly correlated with sales? Create a hypothesis of why you think one of these variables has a higher correlation with sales.