November 02 2018, 21:38

I’m reading something interesting here, I stumbled upon a great illustration of the usefulness of data mining:

“…Walmart mined their massive retail transaction database to see what their customers really wanted to buy prior to the arrival of a hurricane. They discovered one particular item that increased in sales by a factor of 7 over normal shopping days. That one item was not bottled water, or batteries, or beer, or flashlights, or generators, or any of the usual things that we might imagine. The item was strawberry pop tarts! One could imagine lots of reasons why this was the most desired product prior to the arrival of a hurricane – pop tarts do not require refrigeration, they do not need to be cooked, they come in individually wrapped portions, they have a long shelf life, they are a snack food, they are a breakfast food, kids love them, and we love them. Despite these “obvious” reasons, it was still a huge surprise!”