8. A national chain of women's clothing stores with locations in large shopping malls thinks that it can do sort of a better job of planning store renovations and expansions if it understands what variables impact sales. It plans a small pilot study using data on stores in 24 different mall locations (see data below). Use a regression model and discuss your findings. What is your dependent variable, your independent variables, and how would you interpret the resulting coefficients? What conclusions would you share with the company analysts?

The variables for this model can be defined as follows:

Sales = monthly sales per store

Size = store size in square feet

Windows = number of linear feet of window display

Competitors = number of competitors located in the mall

Mall Size = size of mall in sq. feet

Nearest Competitor = distance to competitor in feet