The Impact of Sales Expenses on the Performance of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Enterprises: An Empirical Study Based on A-share Listed Companies in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Industry

Currently, the main direction of China's economic transformation is to drive economic growth through domestic demand, which presents both an opportunity and a risk for rapidly moving consumer goods enterprises in China. Therefore, when studying the relationship between sales expense investment and company performance, fast-moving consumer goods enterprises that are sensitive to sales expenses should be a key focus of research. Building on the research of domestic and foreign scholars on company sales expenses, this paper puts forward its research hypotheses. After studying the relevant financial data of 149 A-share listed fast-moving consumer goods companies from 2012 to 2022, it was found that the level of sales expense investment is positively correlated with corporate operating income. The sales expense ratio has an inverted U-shaped relationship with current gross profit, and the optimal sales expense ratio derived from A-share fast-moving consumer goods companies is 66.77%. Different robustness tests were conducted on the empirical results, and the universality of the empirical results was confirmed. Therefore, based on the empirical results, relevant recommendations can be made to companies. The main contribution of this paper lies in its specific research on the fast-moving consumer goods industry and the analysis of the limitations of capitalizing sales expenses.