Brand-choice analysis using non-negative tensor factorization

Abstract

In marketing science field, modeling of purchase behavior and analysis of brand choice are important research tasks. This paper presents a method that enables such analysis by time-series pattern extraction based on Non-negative Tensor Factorization (NTF). The development of the scanning devices and electronic payments (e.g. online shopping, mobile-phone wallet and electronic money) has led to the accumulation of more detailed POS data including the information about purchase shop, amount of payment, time, location and so on and it brings possibilities for more deep understanding of purchasing behaviors. On the other hand, due to the increase of the number of attributes, it is still difficult to effectively and efficiently handle large feature quantities. In this paper, we consider feature quantities as high-order tensor. Then, using NTF for simultaneous decomposition of multiple attributes, we show analytic effectiveness of pattern factorization for real Beer Item/Brand purchase data. By applying NTF considering three axes: USER-ID × TIME-STAMP × ITEM-ID, we find several temporal tendencies depending on the season. In addition, by focusing on the purchase-pattern correlations between beer items and brands, we find that the tendencies of brand choice strategies appear on the graph drawing results.