Team Business Purpose Analysis

2

Sparklines and Scatterplot Comparing Amazon, Costco, and Walmart

Sparklines and Scatterplot Comparing Amazon, Costco, and Walmart

There are multiple ways of presenting data visually. Sparklines and Scatterplots are two visual representations of data that can be quickly shown to make a point (Harkins, 2020). The Sparklines as shown in Figure 1.1 are small graphic elements in a worksheet cell that offer a visual representation of data to show trends. Using the below data, it shows the trend of Amazon, Walmart, and Costco companies. It showed the maximum and minimum values of the past seven years annual net profit. It could also provided guidance for the companies since it could show the likelihood of the success and failure of a company. Stakeholders would be able to visually see where companies are through a visual representation of this data. This is just an easy visual comparison to show the trends of these three companies of their annual net profits. We can see Amazon has a rise of profit, Walmart has a zigzag shape and Costco has a steady increase. This does not show how they relate to each other, only their trend.

Figure 1.1

On the other hand, our scatterplot shows exactly where the annual net profit of the three companies relate to each other. Scatterplots can help to see if you can see a trend forming or taking shape (Valez, 2020). According to the data from the plot graph, Amazon’s net profit varied over the years, having some low points and some higher points. Costco shows a fairly consistent net profit, and its shape is almost a straight line. Walmart’s net profit shows a varied shape as well. Figure 1.2 shows this. We can see in the past two years; Amazon has a higher net profit than its competitors. The first four years, Walmart had the higher net profit. Only in 2017 did Costco have a higher annual net profit.

Figure 1.2

References

Harkins, S. (2019, March 27). How to turn ordinary sparklines into meaningful information with a few simple formats. TechRepublic. Retrieved on October 12, 2020 from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-turn-ordinary-sparklines-into-meaningful-information-with-a-few-simple-formats/

Macrotrend (October 11, 2012). Amazon net profit margin. Macrotrend. Retrieved on October 11, 2020 from https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/net-income

Macrotrend (October 11, 2020). Costco net profit margin. Macrotrend. Retrieved on October 11, 2020 from https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/net-profit-margin

Macrotrend (October 11, 2020). Walmart net profit margin. Macrotrend. Retrieved on October 11, 2020 from https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-profit-margin

Valez, A. (2020, May 27). What is a scatterplot? Storytelling with Data. Retrieved on October 12, 2020 from http://www.storytellingwithdata.com/blog/2020/5/27/what-is-a-scatterplot