Abstract

Purpose: Market basket analysis is one of the most frequently used methods in the retail industry today as a technique to discover the product association. It is empirically analyzed how these product associations differ regionally in the case of the United States. Research design, data, and methodology: Based on the purchasing data of consumer panels collected from 49 US states, the association rules for each state was extracted with the corresponding lift values indicating product association. The difference in lift values in 49 states by the association rule was compared and tested for 49 states and for 4 census regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, West). Results: The association rules of 3/4 of the same association rules show positive associations or negative associations depending on the lift values of the states. There were significant differences in the lift values for 49 states, and for 4 census regions. These significant differences in the lift values were found to be related to the distance between states and whether states belong to the same census region. Conclusions: Retail product associations shown by market basket analysis may vary depending on regional distance or regional heterogeneity. It is necessary to pay attention to these points in multi-store environment.