The line graph illustrates the shifts in yearly revenue among the three department stores located in a city in the U.K., reporting the period between 2001 and 2015. Overall, the two long-established stores remained dominant in the local market until 2007, when the newcomer, J&W, marked significant growth in its first year of operation.
Grand Mall’s profit, hitting its peak of around 49 million pounds in 2004, had fallen dramatically from 48 to 30 million pounds in the following years, which was actually the onset of the store’s long-term economic struggle. In fact, Grand Mall’s revenue marked its lowest in the last year of the graph, almost halving its highest. The other long-standing store, Owens, had followed Grand Mall’s recession in broad strokes, however, the store retrieved its sales in the end. Having claimed 34 million pounds of annual revenue in 2004, the store’s sales dropped gradually to 20 million pounds. Nevertheless, Owens’s fluctuating but steady recovery led its second highest sales of 32 million pounds in 2014, up from almost 50% of the worst sales marked in 2008 and 2010.
Conversely, J&W showed consistent and smooth growth in the local market. Starting with about 25 million pounds of sales in its first year, already surpassing Owens, J&W increased its annual revenue by 15 million pounds in the following 5 years, reaching 40 million pounds. This eventually made the store the most dominant in the area. Although J&W experienced a slight drop in 2013, losing 10 million pounds from the previous year, it regained momentum quickly, which at last resulted in sales of 46 million pounds in 2015, the highest in its history.