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Marko Svetina, Joe Zupani Merkur d.d. C. na Okroglo 7, Naklo, Slovenia marko.svetina@merkur.si University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences Kidrieva cesta 55a, Kranj, Slovenia joze.zupancic@fov.uni-mb.si Abstract: This paper investigates market basket analysis as an important component of analytical CRM in retail organizations. It presents the case of the company Merkur d.d., Slovenia, a trading company dealing in items for home improvement. The business intelligence system and market basket methodology used in Merkur are described. Use of market basket analyses in Merkur is explained and analysed. In particular, the paper addresses issues such as sales promotion campaigns, placement of goods in retail stores, education of salespeople, offering system solutions and segmentation of customers. The discussed topics are explained using practical examples and guidelines for adequate business decisions. Our study demonstrated that market basket analyses are useful for Merkur, but a better direct marketing strategy must be defined and implemented. Keywords: business intelligence, market basket analysis, cross-sell, up-sell, related sales, retail, merchandising, sales campaign, CRM
1 Introduction
One of the challenges for companies that have invested heavily in customer data collection is how to extract important information from their vast customer databases and product feature databases, in order to gain competitive advantage. Market basket analysis (also known as association rule mining) is one of the data mining methods (Berry and Linoff, 2004) focusing on discovering purchasing patterns by extracting associations or co-occurrences from a stores transactional data. Several aspects of market basket analysis have been studied in academic literature, such as using customer interest profile and interests on particular features of the product for the product development and one-to-one marketing (Weng and Liu, 2004), purchasing patterns in a multi-store environment (Chen et al., 2004), or point at certain weaknesses of market basket analysis techniques (e.g. Vindevogel, Van den Poel and Wets, 2005). Market basket analysis has been intensively used in many companies as a means to discover product associations and base a retailers promotion strategy on them. For example, in Limitedbrands, a family of different fashion brands, the outcome of an extensive market basket analysis was the following (Limitedbrands, 2004):
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When different additional brands are sold together with the basic brands, the revenue from the basic brands is not decreasing, but increasing. Buy two, get threesales promotion campaigns are very successful, if market basket analyses are used in order to determine the right products to be promoted. Buy a product, get a gift sales promotion campaigns are successful, if a basic product and a gift are related and the basic product has high margin rate. Based on market basket analyses, sets of products are defined and sold together with discount.
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Our paper a case study - presents and analyses the application of market basket analysis in a major trade company in Slovenia.
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implementation of this technology was fast and smooth. In Merkur the following Microstrategy tools (Microstrategy, 2005) are used: MicroStrategy Intelligence Server is the heart of the BI system and provides reporting and analysis for the whole enterprise. This BI server provides the full range of BI applications through unified metadata and a single integrated server. MicroStrategy Administrator consists of a suite of tools that provide the systems management environment for business intelligence. It maximizes uptime of BI applications. Its tools give an environment for developing, deploying, monitoring and maintaining of systems. MicroStrategy Architect is a rapid development tool that maps the physical structure of the database into a logical business model. These mappings are stored in a centralized metadata repository. MicroStrategy Desktop is the business intelligence software component that provides integrated query and reporting, powerful analytics and decision support workflow with a desktop PC. MicroStrategy Desktop provides an arsenal of features for on-line analysis of corporate data. Reports can be viewed in various presentation formats, polished into production reports, distributed to other users and extended through a host of ad hoc features including drilling, pivoting and data slicing. The interface itself is customizable to different users' skill levels and security profiles. In Merkur, the Desktop solution is used by 13 power users (analysts). MicroStrategy Web provides users a highly interactive environment and low maintenance interface for reporting and analysis. Using this intuitive HTML-only Web solution, users access, analyze and share corporate data through any web browser on any operating system. MicroStrategy Web provides ad hoc querying, quick deployment and rapid customizability, making it even easier for users to make informed business decisions. In Merkur, Microstrategy Web is used by 90 end users of KAS. MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server is a proactive information delivery server that distributes personalized business information to users via email, pagers and cell phones. It includes an intuitive self-subscription interface that enables users to specify what information they want to receive, as well as when and how they want to receive that information. Narrowcast Server is becoming more and more important in Merkur because of its efficiency.
Presently in KAS (Merkur Commercial Analytical System - KAS, 2005): 13 power users (analysts) and 90 end users; of both groups, 50 users have the ability and knowledge to set-up their own reports. Up to 30.000 reports are run on KAS on monthly basis. KAS consists of the following objects: o 137 tables o 433 attributes o 1.195 metrics o 5.611 reports Over 35 automated services are run on the Narrowcast Server
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The KAS system enables many sophisticated business analyses such as market basket analyses, described later in this paper.
The methodology of market basket analysis in Merkur is basically divided into two steps:
No of Transactions Process
207 207 207
Org. Unit
220 220 220
Date
18.11.2004 19.11.2004 19.11.2004
Document No
72588 731009 731050 1 2 2
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Table 1. The first step of market basket analysis In Table 2 we can see items sold together with item 209525. Items are sorted by number of transactions descending. For every item the following measures are displayed: No of Transactions means number of sales transactions when both items were sold together. QtySold means the total quantity of the item, sold together with original item. Revenue means the total sales revenue of the item. Margin is the margin of the sold item. % Margin to Total shows the percent of total margin considering all business transactions of item 209525.
No of QtySold Revenue Margin % to Total Transactio Margin ns 4.436 7.608,94 6.461.947 1.738.146 100,00%
1.098 1.352,00 94 57 57 42 39 35 35 33 27 24 23 19 100,00 67,00 58,50 39,25 40,00 35,75 33,75 44,00 30,00 24,00 24,00 15,00 1.003.318 37.083 17.353 18.037 32.676 667 14.577 31.781 5.636 19.530 8.580 13.000 17.125 237.943 18.454 7.877 8.121 9.216 292 6.119 15.789 2.471 9.016 2.344 5.695 8.476 13,69% 1,06% 0,45% 0,47% 0,53% 0,02% 0,35% 0,91% 0,14% 0,52% 0,13% 0,33% 0,49%
UM
KOS ZAV ZAV ZAV ZAV KOS ZAV ZAV KOS ZAV KOS ZAV ZAV
Table 2. The final result of item related market basket analysis The next part of market basket analysis is the qualitative evaluation of quantitative result. For example, from our analysis we can see that item 209525 Decorative lamp Saturn II brought only 13.69% of total margin. This means that customers bought many other items together with the Saturn II (4.436 1.098= 3.338 other items). From the other items we can see that the most common items sold together with decorative lamp were different kinds of batteries. Of course, our lamp needs
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batteries and therefore it is very important that batteries are placed in the vicinity of lamps in retail centre. Salespeople should be aware of these items correlations so they can trigger additional sales and satisfy customers with a complete offer. We can also organize sales promotion campaign in which all customers who bought the lamp will be offered batteries at a special price. There are many other possibilities and business opportunities to use the results of market basket analysis in order to increase sales.
No of QtySold Revenue Margin % to Transaction Total UM s Margin 741 758,46 30.524.045 6.682.658 100,00%
KOS KOS KOS KOS KOS KOS KOS KOS KOS 352 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 316,00 26.334.801 2,00 4,00 3,00 4,00 3,00 3,00 3,00 3,00 917 2.263 331.654 530 555 1.759 325 197 5.774.785 584 452 68.131 251 233 871 155 73 86,41% 0,01% 0,01% 1,02% 0,00% 0,00% 0,01% 0,00% 0,00%
Table 3. Market basket analysis of item 212381 Wash machine WA 62111 If we want to promote an item with a low related sales share, then a normal margin has to be calculated, unless there is some other reason to promote a particular item (for example we expect higher sales and margin in future). An example of an item with low related sales share is presented in Table 3. From Table 3 we can see that item 212381 represents over 86% of total margin of transactions with it.
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Further, sales promotions managers in Merkur use several sales campaign analyses. Sales promotion market basket analysis is one among them (see example in Table 4).
No of % to Total % to Total No of Items Transactions Revenue Revenue Margin Margin % Margin Sold Total 185.719 271.956.654 100,00% 73.018.461 100,00% 26,85% 24.440 Promoted items 48.670 83.295.671 30,63% 18.162.954 24,87% 21,81% 62 Other items 137.049 188.660.983 69,37% 54.855.507 75,13% 29,08% 24.378
Table 4. Sales promotion market basket analysis In table 4, data from a New Years promotion campaign is shown. The: campaign was done through public advertising. Paper catalogues of promoted items were sent to households, there were also commercial spots on TV and radio, and advertisements in newspapers. Because of advertising a certain number of customers came in Merkur retail centres in order to buy the promoted items. Additionally, they also bought many non-promoted items (70% opposed to 30% of revenues and 75% opposed to 25% of margins) with much higher % of margin (29,08% opposed to 21,81%). This means that promoted items generated sales of non-promoted items. There are also many possible ways for organizing campaigns using direct marketing tools for the interaction with Merkur loyalty card holder. This issue will be discussed in Section 5.5.
Group name Total NAPA ELEMENTI ZA VGRADNJO HLADILNIKI POMIVALNI STROJI TEDILNIKI DEKORATIVNA SVETILA POMIVALNA KORITA ENOROAJNE BATERIJE PRALNI STROJI KOPALNIKA OPREMA SESALNIK POSODA
Table 5. Classification Group Kitchen extractor hood market basket analysis In Table 5 we can see groups of goods which were sold together with the group Kitchen extractor hood. In the related groups are also different kitchen appliances like refrigerators, dish washers, kitchen-ranges, taps, dishes etc. This means that Merkur should design and offer the customers different kitchen systems. These systems should include kitchen furniture, major and small kitchen appliances and kitchen utensils. Such a system should be displayed in one place in a retail centre
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where customers could choose from whole system solutions to just several parts (items) of these solutions.
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HOW TO INCREASE SALES IN RETAIL WITH MARKET BASKET ANALYSIS KERAMINE PLOICE KOPALNIKO POHITVO STAVBNO POHITVO HLADILNIKI ELEMENTI ZA VGRADNJO KOPALNIKI DODATKI RADIATORJI SANITARNA KERAMIKA POSODA 430 142 276 46 46 869 131 235 535 3.924.416 4.825.302 4.900.481 3.627.812 3.716.342 2.705.612 2.290.027 2.228.676 1.716.342 1.254.167 1.219.398 1.092.807 956.408 878.316 806.550 798.374 756.650 739.033 3,74% 3,63% 3,26% 2,85% 2,62% 2,40% 2,38% 2,26% 2,20%
6 Conclusion
The practice in Merkur proves that market basket analysis is a very useful for marketing campaigns, good placement definition and education of sales personnel. Merkur uses market basket analysis throughout the promotion campaign process. When a sales promotion is prepared, market basket analysis is used to define the right products and the right prices for the campaign. Related non-promoted items are also defined in order to place them in the vicinity of promoted items and therefore increase sales. When sales promotion finishes, its results are carefully analysed in order to discover opportunities for next promotions. Merkur widely uses market basket analyses to manage the placement of goods in retail centres. Related products and product groups are placed together in such a manner that customer can logically find items he/she might buy. The findings of market basket analyses are an important part of the process of teaching the salespeople of Merkur. Sales personnel must be aware of related products in order to increase satisfaction of customers and intensify sales. Market basket analyses are just a part in the holistic approach to the execution of marketing development strategy in Retail in Merkur. The analytical process is integrated in other marketing activities and analysts are an important part of Merkur marketing development team. Team work is crucial for successful use of such analyses. Beside of the organization of the Merkur marketing process, a capable DW&BI system is needed. The BI system must have good performances when processing large amount of data. It also has to be scalable and flexible, but, above all, the BI system must be user-friendly so that different marketing specialists can use it without any problems. Fortunately, Merkurs KAS is such a system. But there is still much work to be done. We demonstrated that market basket analysis in Merkur can be done and that it brings useful results. In the future a working direct marketing strategy must be developed based on data already available in KAS. Then an organization and information systems for efficient execution of this strategy have to be established.
7 References
Berry, M.J.A., Linoff, G.S.: Data Mining Techniques: for Marketing, Sales and Customer Relationship Management (second edition), Hungry Minds Inc., 2004
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Chen, Y.-L., Tang, K., Shen, R.-J., Hu, Y.-H.: Market basket analysis in a multiple store environment, Decision Support Systems (article in press), 2004, accessed through www.ScienceDirect.com Limitedbrands: Achieving Greater Efficiencies with Market Basket Analysis, Microstrategy World 2004 Conference, Miami, 2004 Microstrategy: Business Intelligence in the Retail Industry, Microstrategy World 2003 Conference, Las Vegas, 2003 Microstrategy Web Site: http://www.microstrategy.com/Software/, Microstrategy, 2005 Merkur Commercial Analytical System - KAS, internal document, Merkur, 2005 Merkur Web Site: http://www.merkur.si/ang/podj.html, Merkur, 2005 Svetina, Marko: Izdelava in uporaba market basket analiz, http://www.muson.net/Konferenca_login.asp?mni=12, Konferenca MUS 2004, Ljubljana, 2004 Svetina, Marko: Komercialni analitski sistem v podjetju Merkur d.d., Konferenca Poslovna inteligenca in upravljanje odnosov s strankami, Ljubljana, 2002 Vindevogel, B., Van den Poel, D., Wets, G.: Why promotion strategies based on market basket analysis do not work (article in press), Expert Systems with Applications, 2005, accessed through www.ScienceDirect.com Weng, S.-S., Liu, J.-L.: Feature-based recommendations for one-to-one marketing, Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 26, 2004, pp. 493-508.
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