Firms like AC Nielsen perform regular retail audits at large retail chains as well as large, medium, and small independent stores to track retail sales. They expect a greater variation in the sales of some products in large chains as compared to small sto

The most appropriate sampling technique for this case is stratified sampling. This technique is suitable for this particular situation because it entails segregating the retail sales data into "strata," or subsets, based on various characteristics such as size of store. This way, it allows for the comparison of data across different strata and can reveal significant insights about the sales differences between large and small stores.