The general merchandise retail industry has a number of segments represented by the following companies:

Company Name                                            Merchandise Concept

Costco Wholesale Corporation                       Membership warehouse

Wal-Mart                                                         Discount general merchandise

JCPenney                                                        Department store

For a recent year, the following cost of merchandise sold and beginning and ending inventories have been provided from corporate annual reports (in millions) for these three companies:

a. Determine the inventory turnover ratio for all three companies. Round to one decimal place.

b. Determine the number of days’ sales in inventory for all three companies. Round to one decimal place.

c. Interpret these results based on each company’s merchandise concept.

Costco Wal-Mart Wal-Mart $306,158 35,180 34,511 JCPenney $11,571 3,641 3,259 Cost of merchandise sold Merchandise inventory, beginning Merchandise inventory, ending $62,335 5,039 5,039 5,405