Market basket analysis with neural gas networks and self-organising maps

Abstract

Market basket analysis has been an elementary part of quantitative decision support in retail marketing for many years and it is regularly cited as a prime application area of data mining. In this paper two competitive neural network approaches are presented and discussed with respect to their suitability for purchase interdependence analysis on the product category level. Particular attention is paid to the user-oriented representation or visualisation of cross-category dependences. Both approaches are applied to point of sales scanner data provided by a German retail chain to check how far they are able to uncover presumed purchase interdependences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Targeting, Measurement & Analysis for Marketing is the property of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)