An Analysis of Shopping Basket in a Supermarket

Jiangping Chen, Xiaoxian Yang, Lihua Chen, Li Dong, Yuanyan Fu

Business Information Laboratory
Zhejiang University City College Hangzhou, China
chenjp@zucc.edu.cn

Abstract—This paper analyze the market share between

different brands of sanitary napkins in a certain supermarket
chain in Zhejiang province, China; also make shopping basket
analysis to know what is the best partner of sanitary napkins;
and use time series to analyze the seasonal fluctuations in sales.
It is hoped that these analysis results will help sanitary napkins
manufacturers and sales to do business better.

Keywords- sanitary napkins; supermarket; shopping basket

analysis; market shares; time series analysis

I. INTRODUCTION
The disposable hygiene products market size of China is
about 40 billion RMB Yuan ˄ hereinafter referred to as
“Yuan”˅ in 2007 and is estimated about 45 billion Yuan in
2008, accounting for about 10% of global market share. Figure 1. Market share in sales amount
There are 644 sanitary napkins/pad manufactures at the end
of 2007. Degree of market concentration has greatly
improved over 2006, of which the first 15 sanitary napkin/
pad manufacturer's market share reached 61.8 percent. The
most famous brands are : Anerle, Whisper, Sophie, Shuermei,
Carefree, Llaurier, etc[1].
According to the sales data of a supermarket chain in
Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, China, we make some analysis
of sanitary napkins, such as market share analysis, shopping
basket analysis and time serious analysis.
II. MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS
To deeply analyze the market specifications of sanitary
napkins, the market share is calculated both in sales amount
and sales quantity.
By studying the market share in sales amount of sanitary
napkins in Figure 1, we can very easily see the Whisper is
the absolute brand leader with 47.39% of market share, Figure 2. Market share in sales quantity
followed with Welfare, Anerle, and Sophie. These four
brands carved up almost the market share of 88%. The By querying the relevant data, it is found that the Welfare
remained brands share very little proportion of about 12%. brand sells its product at a lower price. So, it gets more
At the sales quantity’s view in Figure 2, there are some market share in sales quantity, but get less sales amount
changes. Whisper get the number one again with 41.75% relatively. Also, the local manufacture identity helps it for
share, which is about 6% decreased compared with market getting consumer’s trust.
share in sales amount. The local brand Welfare takes the III. MONTHLY MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS
second of 23.56% market share in quantity almost doubled
with the market share in sales amount. Moreover, quantity We calculate sales of the four main brands of sanitary
share of Sophie brand declined almost 5% compared with the _____________________________________
napkins from the beginning of 2008 to May 2009 and draw
sales amount. Another brand Anerle declined about 3% too. the following percentage line chart. Because©2010
978-1-4244-5265-1/10/$26.00 there isIEEE
a big
gap in sales between the top four brands with the others, we
only analyze the majority four brands (Anerle, Whisper,
Sophie, Welfare) as follows.
 According to Figure 3, we can see that the market leader
(Whisper) fluctuations in sales will cause fluctuations in
sales of other brands. Whisper’s sales growth will cause a
sales decline of other brands at the same time, and vice versa.
It shows especially evident in particular in Jan 2009.
Figure 3. Monthly market share
IV. SHOPPING BASKET ANALYSIS
Random sampling in the sales records shows that
0.9734% of buyers purchased sanitary napkins.
The record is grouped by the total spending of a buyer in
stages as follows: below 10 Yuan, 10 ~ 30 Yuan, 30 ~ 50
Yuan, 50 ~ 100 Yuan, 100 ~ 200 Yuan, and more than 200
Yuan.The spending proportion on sanitary napkins of total
Figure 5. Proportion of purchase with sanitary napkins
On Figure 5, beverages category take the top one of the
purchasing proportion with sanitary napkins simultaneously
with about 37.26%, candy/chocolate occupy the second with
27.25%, spice and pastry get the third and the forth with
nearly the same ratios of 26.5%. Of course, the beverages is
the “perfect partner” of sanitary napkins.
TABLE I.
shopping value of each customer in the six levels shows as
Fig 4.
Figure 4. Shopping proportion of sanitary napkins
In these records, some consumers only buy sanitary
napkins. Along with the increase of total purchase value, the
proportion of sanitary napkins consumption declines. It is
import for us to discover what goods the consumer
purchased simultaneously with sanitary napkins.
With the total purchase records of sanitary napkins, there
are many other goods in the same shopping basket including
snacks, candies, chocolates, toothpastes, toothbrushes,
biscuit, wine, stationary, etc. The percentages of each
category show in Figure 5 as follows.
V. TIME SERIES ANALYSIS
Drawing 2005-2008 monthly sales volume of Whisper as
Figure 6 by SPSS software, and we can create periodic
decomposition model of the trend factor for the 12 seasons
using multiplicative model.
Figure 6. Whisper sanitary napkins monthly sales quantities
The seasonal decomposition table shows as Table 1 as
follows.
SEASONAL DECOMPOSITION
 Ratio of
Original
Series to
Moving Moving Seasonally Smoothed Irregular
Original Average Average Seasonal Adjusted Trend-Cycle (Error)
DATE_ Series Series Series (%) Factor (%) Series Series Component
JAN 2005 1337.000 . . 104.8 1275.733 2247.342 .568
FEB 2005 4853.000 . . 111.0 4370.176 3647.243 1.198
MAR 2005 5941.000 . . 112.2 5295.819 4798.467 1.104
APR 2005 4922.000 . . 86.0 5721.814 5546.405 1.032
MAY 2005 5780.000 . . 99.0 5839.037 5904.274 .989
JUN 2005 6090.000 . . 99.6 6112.318 6260.882 .976
JUL 2005 6772.000 6658.67 101.7 101.7 6657.271 6709.684 .992
AUG 2005 7304.000 7860.50 92.9 100.1 7296.553 7343.609 .994
SEP 2005 7619.000 8753.58 87.0 98.2 7758.563 7997.669 .970
OCT 2005 9247.000 9536.92 97.0 99.9 9258.831 8963.276 1.033
NOV 2005 7760.000 10112.75 76.7 86.8 8935.296 10281.824 .869
DEC 2005 12279.000 10877.83 112.9 100.6 12208.722 11983.361 1.019
JAN 2006 15759.000 11659.75 135.2 104.8 15036.856 13353.355 1.126
FEB 2006 15570.000 12567.17 123.9 111.0 14020.945 13938.882 1.006
MAR 2006 15341.000 13458.17 114.0 112.2 13674.997 14080.766 .971
APR 2006 11832.000 14134.67 83.7 86.0 13754.674 14265.810 .964
MAY 2006 14961.000 14729.33 101.6 99.0 15113.811 14994.109 1.008
JUN 2006 15473.000 15292.75 101.2 99.6 15529.705 15919.183 .976
JUL 2006 17661.000 15652.00 112.8 101.7 17361.793 16693.241 1.040
AUG 2006 17996.000 15700.17 114.6 100.1 17977.652 16960.082 1.060
SEP 2006 15737.000 15780.75 99.7 98.2 16025.266 16769.012 .956
OCT 2006 16383.000 16153.67 101.4 99.9 16403.961 16575.077 .990
NOV 2006 14521.000 16465.17 88.2 86.8 16720.287 16396.946 1.020
DEC 2006 16590.000 16696.92 99.4 100.6 16495.048 16155.351 1.021
JAN 2007 16337.000 17035.33 95.9 104.8 15588.370 15991.443 .975
FEB 2007 16537.000 17216.17 96.1 111.0 14891.738 16197.237 .919
MAR 2007 19816.000 17394.50 113.9 112.2 17664.020 16943.034 1.043
APR 2007 15570.000 17823.92 87.4 86.0 18100.091 17774.674 1.018
MAY 2007 17742.000 18277.42 97.1 99.0 17923.216 18482.228 .970
JUN 2007 19534.000 18767.17 104.1 99.6 19605.587 19096.535 1.027
JUL 2007 19831.000 19231.42 103.1 101.7 19495.030 19680.342 .991
AUG 2007 20136.000 19808.55 101.7 100.1 20115.470 20371.144 .987
SEP 2007 20890.000 20502.30 101.9 98.2 21272.657 21193.020 1.004
OCT 2007 21825.000 20868.30 104.6 99.9 21852.924 21914.278 .997
NOV 2007 20398.000 21356.96 95.5 86.8 23487.392 22411.729 1.048
DEC 2007 22161.000 21697.96 102.1 100.6 22034.163 22412.422 .983
JAN 2008 23262.545 21857.88 106.4 104.8 22196.557 22277.935 .996
FEB 2008 24862.000 22046.88 112.8 111.0 22388.486 22407.536 .999
MAR 2008 24208.000 22104.55 109.5 112.2 21579.058 22622.408 .954
APR 2008 21434.000 21989.05 97.5 86.0 24916.978 22882.575 1.089
MAY 2008 21834.000 21720.46 100.5 99.0 22057.011 22485.766 .981
JUN 2008 21453.000 21491.55 99.8 99.6 21531.620 21986.871 .979
JUL 2008 22099.000 21355.55 103.5 101.7 21724.606 21307.652 1.020
AUG 2008 20828.000 . . 100.1 20806.765 20638.829 1.008
SEP 2008 19504.000 . . 98.2 19861.269 20055.321 .990
OCT 2008 18602.000 . . 99.9 18625.800 19718.544 .945
NOV 2008 17651.000 . . 86.8 20324.344 19787.216 1.027
DEC 2008 20529.000 . . 100.6 20411.503 20402.260 1.000
 In Table 1, original series is the sales amount; moving
average aims to eliminate the sequence of the fluctuations in
seasonal and other factors, to get the trend sequence value;
from the original sequence excluding the trend factor, the
sequence ratio is obtained by multiplicative model; also we
can get seasonal factors and seasonally adjusted series, and
smoothing trend-cycle series through smoothing process.
We can see the seasonal factors in Figure 7.
general, and a few women can resist the temptation to price
promotion."[2]. Therefore, women’s psychology is one
factor of this phenomenon of cyclical fluctuations in
seasonal index.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper analyzed the market share between different
brands, shopping basket and season cycle of sanitary
napkins, got some meaningful results. It is believed that
these results will help the sanitary napkins business to make
better decisions on production and marketing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is supported by the construct program of the
key laboratory in Hangzhou.
REFERENCES

[1] www.baogaochina.com, “2009-2012 annual disposable hygiene

products industry competition pattern of strategic research and
investment consultation report”
[2] Yanping Zhang, “Female consumer psychology and marketing
strategies” Chinese Market, vol.5, 2007

Figure 7. Seasonal factors

In Figure 7, there is seasonal effect obviously in Whisper

sanitary napkins’ sales. Every year, the highest sales amount
is in March, and the lowest sales amount is in April. In May
the sales amount climbs again but fluctuated in the following
months, after October it drop down sharply again, then
climb to the top in following months until next March.
The reason is analyzed as follows:
A. Product specificity
Unlike other health commodity, sanitary napkins are
necessity for women, but it is not required every day. For
example, if a woman bought sanitary napkins more than
monthly need last month, she maybe doesn’t need to buy
new one.
B. Holiday Promotions
In Chinese Lunar New Year, the supermarkets will make
a lot of promotion activities. And before and after the
International Women’s Day, all goods for women will
promote highly. So, they will buy more sanitary napkins in
these months especially in March. After the holiday, the
women maybe don’t need buy it, because of too many
“inventories” at home. The situation of November is like the
same, for there is a national promotion in October.
C. Consumer Psychology
This can be linked with product specificity and product
promotion to analyze. Women or girl usually put the goods
into their shopping basket when they saw the promotion of
their favorite brand of sanitary napkins whether there are
reserves of sanitary napkins at home. So, the price
promotion is very efficient to women. A scholar said: "The
prices of the impact on women than on men larger and more