Discussion Questions – Week 3

1. How did Kroger use the market basket analysis method?

• Kroger used the market basket analysis method by “using data from it’s loyalty card program and sent unique coupon offerings to specific households” (Chandra, 2012).

2. Why is market basket analysis so popular in the retail industry? 

• It’s so popular in the retail industry because it gives them the, “ability to explore transaction data to determine the affinities of what people buy to detect changes in basket composition, size and value, and to discover new insights into customer buying behavior” (Chandra, 2012). This also allows the retail industry to optimize the store layouts as much as possible along with setting the right prices to satisfy customers. 

3. How easy is it to run a market basket analysis?

• The process to run a MBA seems to be a lot of work with trying to gather all the data, but depending on a company’s system for how it gathers this data is the debate on how complicated it can be. Generally, it would be pretty easy to look at the most purchased items and see which ones are bought most frequently together- which still seems like a lot of work but again I think the process depends on the company. 

4. Which method was introduced in the report?

• The method introduced was the basic MBA and the ability to sees customers purchases along with items most frequently bought together. The association rules where introduced as well, which represent patters in the data without a specified target which is an example of indirect data mining. 

5. Based on your shopping experience or direct observation, which Maine-based grocery store is the best player in market basket analysis? Why? Use pictures if you can.

• I would definitely say Walmart because it’s such a big corporation. Already talked about in previous assignments, walking down Walmarts aisles is a great example of MBA. For an example, walking down the chips aisle there is a small shelf in the center sticking out from the chip shelves with dips like salsa - a product typically bought with chips. Another relatively known one around the summer months is where Graham crackers, Hersheys chocolate bars, and marshmallows are placed together for smore’s. 

6. Who should be responsible for the overconsumption of sugar? 

• Parents should be educating their children about the overconsumption of sugar  but because parent’s aren’t always the best resource of education, It should be the health education system that runs in schools. Health education systems in America have been frowned upon for their lack of ability to give kids the proper knowledge as it is, but for some reason has not been fixed.

7. Do you believe if the government should regulate the sugar advertising? 

• I don’t necessarily believe that government should regulate sugar advertising because it’s not really their job to educate people on how many calories they are drinking in a can of soda. A person should be able to read the nutritional facts on the can and decide if it’s a good choice for their body or not. Maybe by advertising the government could post signs to educate people about the amount of sugar in a product but again not really their problem. 

8. Identify the stages in the ethical decision-making framework in Chapter 4 and describe how ethics can be integrated into the snack industry’s advertising strategy? 

• The stages in ethical decision making is identifying the issues, gather information and identify stakeholders, brainstorm and evaluate alternatives, and lastly choose a course of action. Ethics can be integrated into the snack industry advertising strategy by identifying the issues of why people wouldn’t buy their product. Then understanding who the audience they are trying to get to buy this snack and what they can do to make it to the best of their ability. Next they need to brainstorm their ways of advertising the product by getting the audiences attention along with the right message to them. Then once the product is on the market make sure they are keep an analysis of how this product is doing by customer feedback and the number product that sells. The most important of ethics to be integrated- is informing the customers what they are putting in their body- which can be done on the packaging but some companies like to disregard this as they know its not super healthy.