Determining Important Factors for Profiability in Dietary Supplement Retailing by Multiple Linear Regression

Sammanfattning: This thesis in applied statistics and industrial economics examined which factors and strategies that had a statistically significant impact on profitability, within the business to consumer dietary supplement market. The data this thesis was based on consisted of several annual reports from the year 2011 to 2015ånd other strategic information. The data included 19 different dietary supplement retailers on the Swedish market. In order to establish which factors had a significant impact on profitability, a linear regression was used. The result was an identified linear relationship between Operating Margin and the covariates Solidity, Average Salary, Only Own Brand, Free Returns, Student Discounts and Chat. A market analysis was then performed using Porter's five forces and a PEST analysis. The analysis concluded that the market is attractive but there are a few uncertainties surrounding the future development of the dietary supplement retailing market.