Yuta Kaneko

Visualization System for Shopping Path

Abstract The purpose of this research paper is to render the customer-shopping path and customer existence probability visible such that people in the marketing field can easily grasp customer behaviors in store. To achieve this, we introduced the customer existence probability, which provides a visual of how long customers stay in each sales floor zone. The visualization system was then applied to customer-shopping path data to provide separate and concurrent displays of customer-shopping paths and the customer existence probability. Concurrent display of customer-shopping paths/customer existence probability is suitable for visualization of longer customer stays in-store, where the customer moves a great deal. This display enables easy assessment of in-store customer rounds including length of time. It also incorporates to the maximum the information volume of customer-shopping path data.

Fractal Dimension of Shopping Path

This paper aims to use fractal dimensions to quantify the complexity of customer in-store movements, and proposes a purchase model factoring in the effects of complex customer movements on purchase behavior. We used the box-counting method to calculate the fractal dimension of shopping paths and investigated its relationships with basket size and sales, which are viewed as important for marketing. We found that the customer group with high fractal dimensions had mean values for the number of sales floor zones visited, basket size, stay time in store, and sales amount statistically higher than those of the customer group with lower fractal dimensions. We analyzed a binomial logit model to identify positive effects that the fractal dimension has on purchases in the food ingredient categories of vegetable, fish, and meat.

The Democratisation of Luxury and the Expansion of the Japanese Market, 1960–2010

This chapter discusses how the Japanese luxury market has developed in a climate of rapid economic change in the 1960s, 1970s, and thereafter. The department stores made important contributions to expand the Japanese luxury market through the introduction of affordable luxury products. In order to provide a comprehensive view of the democratisation of luxury in Japan, we examine the role of department stores, which have been the largest outlet for luxury goods in Japan, and the responses and behaviour of Japanese consumers since the 1980s. Finally, we use a quantitative approach to analyse the economic impact on the Japanese luxury market with data on luxury goods sales and disposable income from the ‘Family Income and Expenditure Survey’.

The Influence of Customer Movement between Sales Areas on Sales Amount: A Dynamic Bayesian Model of the In-store Customer Movement and Sales Relationship

Abstract Recent years have seen active research that utilizes information combining geographic data and sensor data, called geospatial information, in urban planning, medical care and marketing. In this study, we focus on RFID technology that records position information (i.e., spatial information) of shopping carts in a supermarket, and estimate the latent space-time structure of the store as observation data of customers’ visits. Then, we propose a dynamic Bayesian model for sales analysis, which extends the conventional state-space model to include the spatiotemporal structure. From the results of the model analysis, it is obvious that supermarkets have clear periodic structures in units of time periods and weekly structures, and they are dynamically related to the adjacency of each sales area. By utilizing the visualization of the space-time structure of the sales area, it is possible to easily inform the store manager about the influence of customers’ visits on sales outcomes.