Question $1(10\mathrm{.}001$ points$)$

Home Depot is a major retail chain specializing in the sale of construction, home repair, and maintenance products. The company has more than $2240$ retail stores in North America and employs over $340,000$ people worldwide.

Suppose you are a buyer for the clothes washer and dryer product line at Home Depot. You work with seven different brands and numerous models within each brand. One of your goals is to turn your inventory as many times a year as you can, and to do so you want to identify poorly selling models and brands as quiciny as you can. The identification is not as easy as you might think because competition is intense among manufacturers, and a new model can quickly capture a substantial portion of another model's market share. Thus, a big seller one year can be a poor seller next year.

Another problem is that while some sales trends are national, others pertain to specific regions. A strong seller on the East Coast may not sell as well on the West Coast. In other words, a big seller in one region may be a poor seller in another.