The sales per square foot data is most commonly used for planning inventory purchases.

It can also roughly calculate return on investment and it is used to determine rent on a retail location. When measuring sales per square foot, keep in mind that selling space does not include the stock room or any area where products are not displayed.

A retail store with wall units and other shelf space may want to use sales per linear foot of shelf space to determine a product or product category's allotment of space.

Retailers selling various categories of products will find the sales by department tool useful in comparing product categories within a store. For example, a woman's clothing store can see how the sales of the lingerie department compared with the rest of the store's sales.

Also known as sales per customer, the sales per transaction number tells a retailer what is the average transaction in dollars. A store dependant on its sales clerks to make a sale will use this formula in measuring the productivity of staff.

When factoring sales per employee, retailers need to take into consideration whether the store has full time or part time workers. Convert the hours worked by part-time employees during the period to an equivalent number of full-time workers. This form of measuring productivity is an excellent tool in determining the amount of sales a business needs to bring in when increasing staffing levels.

These are just a few of the ways to measure a retail store's performance. As retailers track these numbers month after month and year after year, it becomes easier to understand where the sales are generated, by which employees and how the store's merchandising can maximize sales growth.