Is suggestive selling effective in increasing sales? Investigating its role in store promotion strategy using retail chain data from the U.S.

Suggestive selling is used as an in-store promotional tool by many retailers and some research has examined the effectiveness of this promotional tool. However, extant literature on this topic suffers from limitations of design and data. We discuss and overcome some of these limitations by examining the effectiveness of suggestive selling using store data collected from a large retail chain. We also account for many other in-store promotions implemented during a 146-week period for 6 confectionery products. We find that suggestive selling is effective in increasing sales and shopper penetration in the presence of a variety of in-store promotions. Using a rich, balanced panel dataset, we develop robust models to demonstrate the positive impact of suggestive selling. Theoretical, managerial, and methodological implications of this research are discussed.