Optimizing Retail Strategies: Comparative
analysis of algorithms for Association Rule
Mining.
Bhavana N S
Dept. CSE
BMS Institute of Technology and
Management, Bengaluru Karnataka -
560064
1by20cs038@bmsit.in
Abstract: The identification of frequent item sets stands as a
pivotal challenge in the realm of data mining. In the contemporary
landscape, where the demand is for increased outcomes within
stringent time constraints, there arises an imperative for
algorithms capable of swift computations. This study aims to
devise an algorithm facilitating the generation of frequent item
sets, markedly reducing the time and effort invested. Frequent
item sets represent combinations of items frequently purchased
together, such as the classic example of bread and butter. In this
study, we explore two association rules mining algorithms: FP-
Growth and Eclat, employed to ascertain the likelihood of
secondary items being purchased when a primary item is acquired.
FP-Growth operates through a two-phase methodology, offering
a vertical perspective of data and utilizing a depth-first algorithm.
It minimizes database reads, storing data in a tree format within
the primary memory. On the other hand, the Eclat algorithm
employs depth-first search techniques to discover frequent item
sets. To evaluate their performance, these algorithms are
compared based on their time efficiency. Through meticulous
comparison, it is established that the FP-Growth algorithm
exhibits superior speed for smaller datasets. It demonstrates a
shorter timeframe in generating frequent item sets compared to
the Eclat algorithm.
Keywords: Association Rule, Frequent Item Sets, Eclat, FP-
Growth
I. INTRODUCTION
Investing time and resources into strategically placing
products in a store not only reduces customer shopping
duration but also triggers reminders of related products,
potentially amplifying cross-sales. This strategy hinges on
association learning, which navigates relationships among
items within extensive databases [1]. A quintessential
Brundaja D N
Dept. CSE
BMS Institute of Technology and
Management, Bengaluru Karnataka -
560064
1by20cs041@bmsit.in
example is Market Basket Analysis [2]. Upon entering a
department store, individuals often have a list of intended
purchases based on their needs and preferences. If items X
and Y are frequently purchased together, positioning both X
and Y on the same shelf can entice buyers to consider
complementary purchases. Conversely, separating products
X and Y prompts customers to traverse the store, potentially
prompting recall of additional desired items. Traditional rule
learning algorithms focus on constructing regression,
classification, and predictive rules [3]. This domain, part of
machine learning, falls under supervised or predictive
learning. Meanwhile, descriptive induction, including
associative rule learning and subgroup discovery, has gained
notable traction as approaches to non-classical induction.
Diverse algorithms are employed in association rule learning,
among which FP-Growth and Eclat stand prominent. FP-
Growth, a two-phase method, optimizes by reading the
database only twice and storing it in a tree structure within
primary memory. Eclat, a scalable variant of FP-Growth,
emphasizes using set intersection to compute the support of
candidate item sets, bypassing the generation of non-existent
subsets within the prefix tree.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
1. Christian Borgelt [4], in the article "Efficient
Implementations of FP-Growth and Eclat," details the
implementations of FP-Growth and Eclat alongside various
optimization techniques aimed at maximizing performance
concerning execution time and memory usage. Borgelt
explains that FP-Growth relies on an FP tree representation
to identify frequent item sets, while Eclat utilizes bit matrices
to portray transaction lists, facilitating the filtering of closed
and maximal item sets.
2. In the paper "Comparative Survey on Association Rule
Mining Algorithms" by Manisha Girotra et al [5], the
exploration of algorithms employed in associative rule
learning is segmented into two stages. Girotra and colleagues
thoroughly examine and scrutinize the merits and drawbacks
of these algorithms. Interestingly, despite fundamental
differences in their strategies, these algorithms demonstrate
almost similar runtimes. Notably, the FP-Growth algorithm
outperforms others for closed item sets, whereas Eclat takes
the lead in free item sets.
3. Mohammod Akib Khan et al, in their paper titled "Market
Basket Analysis for improving the effectiveness of marketing
and sales using Apriori, FP Growth, and Eclat Algorithm"
[6], expound on the design and execution of the three most
prominent algorithms in market basket analysis.
4. The paper "Association Rule – Extracting Knowledge
Using Market Basket Analysis" by Raorane A.A. et al [7]
conducts an in-depth analysis of a substantial volume of data
to elucidate consumer behavior. The aim is to make informed
decisions, gaining a competitive edge over competitors.
5. In [8], an optimized and efficient algorithm known as
Customer Purchase Behavior (CPB) was devised for
discovering frequent item sets while minimizing scans, time,
and memory usage, subsequently generating rules. The CPB
algorithm comprises two primary components: generating
frequent item sets and predicting customer behavior based on
these sets. However, it's noteworthy that the CPB algorithm
consumes more time in generating associated rules.
III. CONCEPTUAL INFORMATION
Market Basket Analysis - Market basket analysis serves as
a strategic data mining approach employed by retailers to
boost sales through a comprehensive understanding of
customer purchasing patterns. This technique involves
scrutinizing substantial datasets, including historical
purchase records, to unveil inherent product groupings and
identify items frequently bought together.
Recognition of these co-occurrence patterns empowers
retailers to make informed decisions, optimizing inventory
management, devising effective marketing strategies,
employing cross-selling tactics, and refining store layout for
enhanced customer engagement.
Consider, for instance, the scenario where customers
purchase milk. What is the likelihood that they will also
purchase bread (and the specific type of bread) during the
same supermarket visit? Leveraging this information can
potentially increase sales by enabling retailers to engage in
targeted marketing based on predictions, implement cross-
selling initiatives, and plan shelf space for optimal product
placement.
In a conceptual shift, envision the universe as the set of items
available in the store, where each item possesses a Boolean
variable indicating its presence or absence. Each basket is
then represented by a Boolean vector assigned values for
these variables. The analysis of these Boolean vectors unveils
purchase patterns reflecting frequently associated or co-
bought items, represented in the form of association rules.
Association Rule Mining - Association rule mining plays a
crucial role in recommendation systems, guiding decisions
on the user's interests. It operates as a recommendation
system, as seen in platforms like Netflix, where user
interactions are monitored to personalize content.
Association rule learning extends beyond recommendation
systems, revealing relationships between independent
databases, applicable in domains such as retail, web
analytics, and bioinformatics.
Support, a key parameter, quantifies the frequency of an
item's appearance in the dataset. Mathematically, the support
of item 'X' concerning transaction 'T' is the count of
transactions containing 'X.'
Support Count, another parameter, elucidates the frequent
occurrence of an item in a transaction. If 'N' is the total
number of transactions, the support of 'X' is defined
accordingly.
The 'confidence' parameter gauges the reliability of a rule,
indicating the certainty with which a rule applies to a specific
item set. Confidence for 'X' implies 'Y' is mathematically
defined.
Lift, a metric of significance, elucidates the importance of a
targeting item in a specific classification case. It signifies the
correlation between the targeted item and the primary item.
FP-Growth Algorithm - FP-Growth, which stands for
Frequent Pattern Growth, represents a novel approach to data
representation through an FP tree, emphasizing frequent
patterns. It is a method employed for Mining Frequent Item
sets and serves as an evolution beyond the Apriori Algorithm.
Notably, FP-Growth eliminates the necessity for candidate
generation to derive frequent patterns, introducing the
concept of a frequent pattern tree structure that retains
associations between item sets.
A Frequent Pattern Tree is a tree structure constructed using
earlier item sets from the data, with the primary objective of
mining the most frequent patterns. Each node in the FP tree
symbolizes an item within that itemset. The root node
denotes the null value, while subsequent nodes signify the
item sets in the data. The creation of the tree meticulously
preserves the associations between these nodes, ensuring a
clear representation of the relationships between different
item sets.
ECLAT Algorithm - ECLAT, which stands for Equivalence
Class Clustering and Bottom-Up Lattice Traversal, is an
association rule mining method that addresses the challenge
of generating frequent items efficiently. While various
algorithms exist for discovering frequent item sets, Apriori, a
fundamental method, can be time-consuming as it requires
multiple scans of the database. To overcome these
limitations, the ECLAT algorithm was developed.
In contrast to Apriori, ECLAT adopts a vertical database
representation, enabling a single scan of the database.
Initially, the horizontally formatted data is transformed into
a vertical format during the first database scan. Mining
operations are then performed on this vertically structured
dataset by intersecting the TID-sets of each pair of frequent
single items. The support count of an itemset is determined
by the length of its TID-set. For instance, if the minimum
support count is set to 2, association rules can be generated
from any frequent item sets.
A notable optimization in ECLAT is the use of "fast
intersection." In this approach, when two TID-lists are
intersected, the resulting TID-list is only considered if its
cardinality meets the minimum support requirement. This
means that each intersection is promptly eliminated if it fails
to satisfy the minimum support criteria, contributing to the
efficiency of the algorithm.
2. Building the FP-Tree:
First Pass: Counting Item Frequencies:
➔ Scan the dataset to count the frequency of each item.
➔ Discard infrequent items below a specified minimum
support threshold.
Second Pass: Building the FP-Tree:
➔ Construct the FP-Tree (Frequent Pattern Tree) from the
transactions.
➔ Start with an empty tree.
➔ For each transaction, insert the items into the tree,
updating node counts as needed.
3. Mining Frequent Item sets:
Mining the FP-Tree:
➔ Traverse the FP-Tree to generate frequent item sets.
➔ Start with the least frequent item and grow the item sets
incrementally.
➔ For each item, find its conditional pattern base and
construct a conditional FP-Tree.
➔ Recursively mine the conditional FP-Tree to find
frequent item sets.
4. Generating Association Rules:
Calculating Confidence:
➔ For each frequent itemset, generate association rules.
➔ Calculate the confidence of each rule, indicating the
likelihood of the consequence given the antecedent.
Pruning Rules:
➔ Prune rules that do not meet the minimum confidence
threshold.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION

Steps of FP-Growth Algorithm

1. Data Preprocessing:
Transaction Encoding:
➔ Represent each transaction in the dataset as a set of
items.
➔ Encode transactions into a binary format where each
column corresponds to an item, and each row
corresponds to a transaction.
Pseudocode for FP-Growth Algorithm
Steps of ECLAT algorithm week. With 7501 transaction records, each detailing items
sold, the analysis aims to unveil association rules between
1. Input: items, contributing to various applications in data-driven
decision-making.
➔ Transactional database D with transactions T1, T2, ...,
Tn.
➔ Minimum support threshold min_support.

2. Transaction Encoding:

➔ Represent each transaction as a set of items.

3. Building Equivalence Classes:

➔ Create a vertical database representation.

➔ Sort items by support count in descending order.
➔ Create equivalence classes for each item.

4. Recursive Depth-First Search:

➔ Recursively combine TID-lists of items in descending

order of support.

5. Generate Frequent Itemsets:

➔ Explore the lattice structure in a bottom-up manner.

6. Generating Association Rules:

➔ Calculate confidence for each frequent itemset.

➔ Prune rules that do not meet the minimum confidence
threshold.

Output: Trial 1

Pseudocode for ECLAT algorithm

In this implementation, we leverage the publicly available

Market Basket Optimization dataset from Kaggle,
encompassing transaction records of a retail company over a

Trial 2
Trial 3
V. CONCLUSION
The Eclat and FP Growth algorithms underwent a thorough
comparative analysis to assess their operational efficiencies,
blending both runtime assessments and theoretical
considerations. Despite clear disparities in their strategic
approaches, a surprising similarity emerged in their runtime
performances. However, the empirical evidence decisively
favors the Eclat algorithm, showcasing its superior
performance and time efficiency over FP Growth.
This conclusion is firmly supported by a meticulous
evaluation of the graphical results derived from an online
dataset, unequivocally demonstrating Eclat's dominance.
Notably, a discernible trend surfaces indicating a decrement
in execution time with an increase in support, a vital insight
crucial for optimizing these algorithms.
Beyond their current application, these algorithms boast
versatility transcending diverse domains, capable of
unearthing fascinating insights within various datasets.
Moreover, the potential amalgamation of association rules
generated by both algorithms holds promise in devising more
effective algorithms tailored for real-world applications. The
prospect of amalgamating these algorithms into a unified,
more efficient computational framework is tantalizing. Such
integration could pave the way for innovative algorithms
capable of delving deeper into datasets, unlocking new
dimensions of understanding, and driving impactful
advancements across multifaceted domains.
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