SSK4407 Business Analytics

Group Project (CPS4:10%, CPS6:10%)

Due Date: 18th January 2024 (Week 14)

Background Information
Business analytics (BA) involves the iterative, methodical exploration of an organization's
data, emphasizing statistical analysis. Companies committed to making data-driven
decisions leverage business analytics to transform data into a competitive advantage.
This project focuses on showcasing your talent as a Business Analyst through the
analysis of online marketing data in the e-commerce domain.
Specific types of business analytics include:
• Descriptive analytics: Tracks key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand
the present state of a business.
• Predictive analytics: Analyzes trend data to assess the likelihood of future
outcomes.
• Prescriptive analytics: Uses past performance to generate recommendations for
handling similar situations in the future.

Online Marketing and E-commerce

Marketing campaigns play a vital role in promoting products on e-commerce platforms.
Gain insights into effective e-marketing strategies by consulting HubSpot's E-commerce
Marketing Guide, accessible at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ecommerce-marketing.
Explore shopping cart functionalities on Virtocommerce's E-commerce Shopping Carts
page, found at https://virtocommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-shopping-cart . Additionally, refer
to the Kaggle dataset "E-commerce Sales Data 2023-24," available at
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ahmedaliraja/e-commerece-sales-data-2023-24.

This project provides students with a hands-on opportunity to explore online marketing
and e-commerce analytics. By focusing on a real-world dataset and industry guides,
students can gain practical experience in analyzing data from e-commerce platforms and
contribute to enhancing operational and strategic objectives.
Task 1 – Data Extraction and Exploratory Data Analysis

Background Information
Business analytics (BA) involves systematically exploring an organization's data, with a
focus on statistical analysis. Companies dedicated to data-driven decisions leverage
business analytics to transform data into a competitive advantage. This project aims to
showcase your skills as a Business Analyst through the analysis of online marketing data
in the e-commerce domain.
Specific types of business analytics include:
• Descriptive analytics: Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand
the present state of a business.
• Predictive analytics: Analyzing trend data to assess the likelihood of future
outcomes.
• Prescriptive analytics: Using past performance to generate recommendations for
handling similar situations in the future.

Online Marketing and E-commerce

Marketing campaigns play a vital role in promoting products on e-commerce platforms.
Gain insights into effective e-marketing strategies by consulting HubSpot's E-commerce
Marketing Guide, accessible at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ecommerce-
marketing. Explore shopping cart functionalities on Virtocommerce's E-commerce
Shopping Carts page, found at https://virtocommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-shopping-
cart. Additionally, refer to the Kaggle dataset "E-commerce Sales Data 2023-24,"
available at https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/ahmedaliraja/e-commerece-sales-data-
2023-24.
This project provides students with a hands-on opportunity to explore online marketing
and e-commerce analytics. By focusing on a real-world dataset and industry guides,
students can gain practical experience in analyzing data from e-commerce platforms and
contribute to enhancing operational and strategic objectives.

Dataset and Software

Access the e-commerce sales dataset attached. This E-commerce Sales Data dataset is
valuable for e-commerce platforms and data scientists seeking to optimize the shopping
experience, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive business growth through data-
driven insights. Utilize Excel Pivot tables/charts, Python, Tableau, Ms Power BI, Weka, or
Rapid Miner when needed.
Task 1 – Data Extraction and Exploratory Data Analysis

Objective
Study the impact of marketing campaigns on buying behavior within an e-commerce
setting. Perform Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) on the provided dataset to determine
the effectiveness of various online marketing tools. Provide recommendations for future
marketing campaigns.

Analysis Focus
• Recommendation Systems: Utilize the user-product interaction data for building
recommendation systems, enabling the development of personalized product
recommendations to enhance the user experience.
• Market Basket Analysis: Leverage the dataset for market basket analysis to
understand products frequently purchased together, aiding in inventory
management and targeted marketing.
• User Behavior Analysis: Analyze user interactions to gain insights into user
behavior, including popular product categories, browsing patterns, and the impact
of user reviews and ratings on purchasing decisions.
• Targeted Marketing: Leverage the dataset to inform marketing strategies,
enabling businesses to tailor promotions and advertisements to specific user
segments and product categories.

BI Reporting Solution/Dashboards/Data Mining Technique

Select a BI reporting solution or data mining technique suitable for analyzing e-commerce
data. Justify your choice, including the layout of data sets and attributes in your proposed
solution. Include visual samples of the reports/screenshots in your written report. Clearly
state any assumptions made during the analysis.

Task 2 – Multi-dimensional Modeling

Objective
Design a data warehouse for e-commerce data. Support analysis on sales performance
related to Products, Promotion, Transactions, and Time. The Time dimension hierarchy
should include Month -> Week -> Day -> Morning -> Afternoon -> Night.
Data Extraction, Analysis and Visualization
Extract data from the e-commerce dataset, transform as needed, and load/create CSV or
Excel files. Use suitable software to analyze data and create charts showing Sales
amount based on One-Dimensional data, Two-Dimensional data, etc.

Task 3 – Recommendations for Top Management

Objective
Based on the analysis of e-commerce data, provide logical recommendations to the top
management to improve operations and achieve strategic objectives. Support your
recommendations with insights gained from the dataset and reference peer-reviewed
sources where applicable.