Does a Store's Price-Match Maturity Level Predict Anything a Shopper Would Notice?

Auditing 96 Supermarket and Strip-Mall Branches Against a Five-Level Price-Match Maturity Model, Set Against Independently Logged Approval and Resolution-Time Outcomes

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement audits 96 supermarket and strip-mall grocery branches against PMRM, a five-level maturity model scoring how a store handles a shopper's price-match claim, then sets each branch's attained level against fourteen months of independently logged mystery-shopper approval and resolution-time outcomes. Attained level predicts neither outcome, and collapsing the five levels to automated versus manual reproduces the same null; one chain's HR division has nonetheless begun setting floor-staff quarterly bonus eligibility from attained level alone.

@misc{slop_mq3llj,
  author       = {Joost Nwosu and Bram Ntuli and Ingeborg Nwachukwu},
  title        = {Does a Store's Price-Match Maturity Level Predict Anything a Shopper Would Notice?: Auditing 96 Supermarket and Strip-Mall Branches Against a Five-Level Price-Match Maturity Model, Set Against Independently Logged Approval and Resolution-Time Outcomes},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.mq3llj},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-four-years-is-mq3llj/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}