Sunday, April 21, 2013
I don't always buy beer, but when I do I buy diapers
There aren't many data mining memes but the most prominent one involves the correlation between the sales of beer and diapers. These associations could be due to a number of reasons, including the following:
-That a post pregnant women is too tired or too weak to carry a giant bag of diapers, so they send their burly husbands out to pick some up. While they are out, they realize that they are off work and it is now time to put down a few beers, so while he's out he picks up his favorite brew.
-A poo-poo happens late at night. While the mother watches out and takes care of the baby, the husband is RUSHED to the grocery store to pick up some diapers. Being annoyed, he also picks up a 12 pack to relax.
-Just the the convenience factor. Well I don't have any beer at the house guess I'll pick some up while I'm out.
When doing studies on how these 2 sales relate you have to be careful with the correlation doesn't equal causation phenomenon. Without having a background in statistics and hypothesis testing, you can easily reach a misleading conclusion. This is a shame because there is much power in discovering how things relate. If this relationship of diapers and beer appears to be associated to a large enough percentage, businesses should react in a proper manner. Possibly putting the diapers and beer shelves closer to one another would so dramatic change in sales (and show further association among the 2.)
source: http://blog.patternbuilders.com/tag/retail-analytics/
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This is why different cultures existing. Lets use Taiwan, my country, as the example. I have so many classmates who are married, and they even have kids now. Wow, that is an alert because I am getting old, and where is my baby? If the diaper is running out, they tend to buy diapers at the convenient store. Now, the important part is coming. They don't buy beers!! They may buy some food, and take it to share with their lovely wife. For some guys, they may buy cigarette, and smoke outside. If they bring beers home, you may be able to imagine an angry wife shouting at you. As a matter of fact, the association rule may be different in different countries. By the way, I don't think putting diapers and beer shelves closer is a good idea personally.
ReplyDeleteI did some research on the origin of this 'beer and diapers' correlation and found some interesting stuff. Thomas Blischok, CEO of MindMeld, Inc., did the original study on the beer and diapers myth. In reality, nothing was done with actual beer and diapers. They simply concluded that there was a new merchandizing strategy coming to play - buy what's sold instead of selling what you're buying. Study shows that young fathers were buying the beer late afternoon, roughly around Thursday. It was noted that fathers were 'rewarding' themselves as one of the scenarios.
ReplyDeleteThere's some more interesting stuff about this story that I've linked below.
Link: http://www.dssresources.com/newsletters/66.php