New research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science reported that banning tobacco products would mean retailers would experience as much as a 4% decline in gross sales.
Titled “What Happens When a Retailer Drops a Product Category? Investigating the Consequences of Ending Tobacco Sales,” the study demonstrated the role of tobacco as a traffic driver to brick-and-mortar stores, and negative microeconomic consequence a ban would have, whether voluntary or not.
“On one hand, the decision by, for example, Dick’s to drop assault weapons from its assortment may affect own- and rival-store patronage and spill over to the sales of other categories. On the other hand, a store’s voluntary decision to end, say, tobacco sales may draw nonsmokers more to its stores and compensate for losses from discontinuing the category,” continues Chintagunta, the Joseph T. and Bernice S. Lewis Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago.
Diane Caruana – VapingPost – 2022-09-02.