Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Market Basket—just look in that customer's shopping cart. This tangible
and clear definition of a transaction, bounded by a shopping cart, led to a
tangible and clear understanding of a transaction as a unit of work, known
as a Market Basket. The analysis of the contents of all the shopping carts
took the name Market Basket Analysis.
But language is a powerful tool. The words we use can both limit our
thinking and expand our thinking. The analytic toolset honed in the
retail environment as Market Basket Analysis can also be applied to any
other environment wherein the unit of work is complete in and of itself.
The term for that unit of work, which replaces the term
Market Basket
,
is
Itemset
. An Itemset can be the contents of a shopping cart, the con-
tents of a stock trade, the line items in an invoice, the products manu-
factured by the second shift, or the menu items selected by customers in
a restaurant for dinner. In each of these cases, the contents of the activ-
ity are clearly bounded and known. They are, each of them, an Itemset.
Because they are an Itemset they are all candidates for Market Basket
Analysis. For the following examples, the Itemset would be bounded by
the following:
• Shopping Cart
• Enterprise: he retail store ofering the products for purchase
• Who: A customer selecting the products to be purchased
• What: A retail sales transaction
• When: he date and time when a customer visits the retail store
• Where: All the selected products are located inside a shopping
cart, which is inside a retail store.
• How: he customer pays for, and takes possession of, the prod-
ucts in one transaction.
• Stock Trade
• Enterprise: Brokerage irm
• Who: A customer selecting stocks and/or bonds to be purchased
• What: A stock and/or bond purchase transaction
• When: he date and time when a customer pays for the stocks
and/or bonds selected to purchase
• Where: All the selected stocks and/or bonds are listed in a pur-
chase agreement.
• How: he customer pays for, and takes possession of, the stocks
and/or bonds in one transaction.
