Question

State the null and alternative hypotheses for the situation described below for a statistical test. Testing to see if average sales are higher in stores where customers are approached by salespeople than in stores where they aren't. Let group 1 be the group of stores where customers are approached by salespeople and let group 2 be the group of stores where customers are not approached by salespeople.

Answer 1

H₀: μ₁ - μ₂ = 0 vs. Hₐ: μ₁ - μ₂ > 0.

Explanation:

A test is to be performed to determine whether the average sales are higher in stores where customers are approached by salespeople than in stores where they aren't.

A two-sample test can be used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the sales of the stores where the customers are approached by salespeople and the stores where the customers are not approached by salespeople.

We can either use the z-test or t-test. If the population standard deviation for the sales of the two stores are given then we will use the z-test. And if not then the t-test will be used.

1 : group of stores where customers are approached by salespeople

2 : group of stores where customers are not approached by salespeople

The hypothesis can be defined as follows:

H₀: There is no difference between the average sales of the two stores, i.e. μ₁ - μ₂ = 0.

Hₐ: The sales for the store 1 is higher than that for store 2, i.e. μ₁ - μ₂ > 0.