Gene Detroyer

Family Dollar Tests Basket Analysis

March 11, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
In a project last year, Family Dollar worked with Applied Predictive Technologies to understand what's happening at the basket level. How do you think better access to basket analysis insights can help retailers and vendors?      [more...]

Are shoppers likely to respond more to a high consumable product on promotion than a very low consumable? Are shoppers more likely to respond to a pantry-stored item on promotion than a replacement item? Of course!

When shoppers are engaged in a category (laundry) are they more likely to purchase other category items (fabric softener)? Yes!

When shoppers shop a promotional price retailer, are they more likely to respond to promotional advertising? Yes, again!

One hopes that the examples given were simplistic and obvious and used because they didn't give away any unique findings. Because if this is the type of conclusions they discovered, they wasted their money.

Family Dollar is a smart retailer and all should assume there is more to the research than they disclosed. The reality is that basket analysis is invaluable and should be executed on a regular basis. There are so many variables to observe (an infinite number) that every iteration should provide insight. Of particular value is what the retailer can do in the store to flex the ultimate size of the basket. Once the shopper is in the store, they are in a controlled environment and can be prompted to exercise more shopping decisions, which will lead to larger baskets for the retailer.