Making the Ledgers Talk: Customer Control and the Origins of Retail Data Mining, 1920–1940

Abstract

By the 1930s, American business had begun to take consumer research seriously. “Probably at no time in t he la st decade has actual knowledge of consumer buying habits been as vital to successful and profitable retailing as it is today,” a New York Times writer observed in 1931, reporting on new efforts to analyze customer sales data.1 Enterprising merchants had always sought to attune themselves to the whims of their customers; however, during the early decades of the twentieth century, new social-scientific methods emerged as promising alternatives to informal observation and intuition. The concept of market research, separate from earlier cost-analysis studies of distribution and merchandising, took on special luster as American retailers sought to direct their promotional efforts with greater accuracy and predictability. By relying on “a ‘hunch’ and a ‘guess,’ ” the New York Times reporter noted, “stores in countless instances have advertised merchandise, say on Thursday, when even trifling analysis would show its best consumer response on Tuesday.”2