Data Mining on Sales Transaction Data Using the

Association Method with Apriori Algorithm

Asrul Sani Samuel Nur Nawaningtyas P
Department of Informatics Department of Informatics Department of Informatics
STMIK Widuri STMIK Widuri STMIK Widuri
Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia
asrulsani@kampuswiduri.ac.id samuelsukmana100@gmail.com tyaspusparini@kampuswiduri.ac.id

Bayu Waseso Goldie Gunadi Tri Haryanto

Department of Information System Department of Informatics Board of Director
Universitas Mercu Buana STMIK Widuri Aru Raharja
Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta Indonesia Jakarta Indonesia
bayu.waseso@mercubuana.ac.id send2goldie@gmail.com tri.haryanto@aruraharja.co.id

Abstract— The purpose of this study was to determine
consumer buying patterns at CV. XYZ by utilizing one of the
data mining methods, namely the association method. The
apriori algorithm can be used to find association rules from
sales transaction data in the company with the help of the
RapidMiner application. Thus the sales transaction data in
the company can be reprocessed to obtain critical
information. Sales transaction data will be processed using
Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD). The test results
with the RapidMiner application get four association rules.
The best association rule is that if consumers buy Pants with
code 1076, they are also likely to purchase Pants with code
0814 (confidence = 83.3% & lift = 18.5).
Keywords— Association Method, Apriori Algorithm,
Association Rules, Data Mining
I. INTRODUCTION
In Indonesia, many companies are engaged in the same
field. For example, garment retail is growing and in
demand from young people to adults. The company must
have various strategies to compete so that its business can
develop and earn profits. One way is by utilizing all sales
transaction data that has occurred in the company itself [1].
Various problems are often experienced, such as not
knowing the layout arrangement of goods based on
consumer habits of buying goods simultaneously. In
addition, some companies still do not know the pattern of
purchasing goods, including what goods are purchased
simultaneously by consumers in one transaction [2].
Business activities that run every day also cause transaction
data to increase, but the data is only stored as an archive
and only used for making sales reports. Actually, the data
has beneficial information, especially for retail business
people for the progress of running their business [3].
The ability and speed to process big data into useful
information are very much needed by companies in
formulating effective and efficient business strategies [4].
With relevant information, purchasing patterns in an item
can be used to improve sales performance so that we can
make the right decisions. One way is using data mining
techniques to find these patterns [5]. With data mining,
large transaction data will be explored for added value to
obtain knowledge that has not been known manually [6].
The association method is one of the methods found in data
mining. This method aims to find the relationship between
items from a database [7]. The apriori algorithm, including
the types of association rules found in data mining,
functions to form candidate item combinations and then
tests whether the item combination meets the minimum
support and confidence parameters which are the threshold
values given by the author. In addition to these two
parameters, the lift parameter is also used to measure how
important the rules that have been formed are based on the
support and confidence values by providing information on
whether it is true that product A was purchased together
with product B [8]. The supporting application that can be
used to find association rules from transaction data namely
RapidMiner. RapidMiner is open-source software that
provides solutions for analyzing data mining, text mining
and predictive analysis [9].
The author conducted research in retail garment
companies. So far, to see the results of sales of existing
products, the company still uses the difference between the
goods produced and the goods sold. In addition, there is a
habit of consumers who always buy more than one type of
goods in one transaction. In interviews conducted by the
author with the HRD Manager. The process of recording
sales transactions using the Accurate application and
Microsoft Excel. To find out the types of goods that
consumers like, the company looks at the application and
consumers' opinions. This company does not have a unique
method to determine the pattern of consumer buyers. So to
find out which items are bought together by consumers in
one transaction, the company looks at the sales transaction
records in the Accurate application and Microsoft Excel.
Data mining science that uses the association method
with the apriori algorithm is expected to be a solution to
provide an overview to the company regarding the pattern
of linkage of any goods that consumers usually buy
together as a reference for companies in producing goods
based on consumer habits. In addition, the results obtained
can provide information about the placement of items that
should be close together to make it easier for consumers to
find them. In this way, extensive sales transaction data can
be utilized as well as possible to gain knowledge that
benefits the company and not only be used as archives or
reports.
Based on the explanation above, this study aims to
generate consumer purchasing patterns sourced from CV.
XYZ sales transaction data in 2021 by using RapidMiner
as a supporting application to find association rules. In
addition, from these results, what types of goods must be
sold and come from any category is also known.
 The 10th International Conference on Cyber and IT Service Management (CITSM 2022)
Yogyakarta, September 20-21, 2022
II. THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
In this study, the author uses the Knowledge Discovery
in Database (KDD) stage of processing data so that it can
go to the data mining process. Knowledge Discovery in
Database (KDD) is another name for data mining, which
includes collecting and using historical data to find
regularities, patterns, or relationships in large databases
[10]. The stages in KDD consist of Data Selection,
Preprocessing, Transformation, Data Mining, and
Evaluation [11].
Fig 1. KDD Stages
TABLE I. EXPLANATION OF KDD STAGES
Stages Description
Data Selection The author chooses the attributes of the data
to be used based on the objectives to be
achieved and then stored in a separate file
from operational data. The attributes of the
operational data include the date, purchase ID,
item code, and amount of items sold, but the
author only chooses the date and item code
because the author will sort the items sold
(item code) by date for one year so that the
information contained is representative as a
research indicator. Then the data will be
stored separately in an excel file.
Preprocessing After the data selection stage, the author will
clean up the data that is the center of KDD's
attention, such as eliminating duplicate data,
checking inconsistent data, and correcting
typographical errors. From the checking that
the author did from the data that had been
selected at the data selection stage, there were
no errors such as duplicated, inconsistent, or
typographical data.
Data Transformation Data that has passed the data selection and
preprocessing stages, then the author will
change it into tabulation form. The tabulated
data will contain binary numbers 0 and 1. 0
(negative) means no transactions have been
made, and 1 (positive) means transactions are
made.
Data Mining At this stage, the process of searching for new
patterns or helpful information using specific
methods and algorithms. So after the author
has finished creating tabulated data, it will
then be processed using the RapidMiner
application to find the association rules using
the association method with the apriori
algorithm.
Stages Description
Evaluation At this stage, the author will evaluate the
results of the data mining process against the
association rules by looking at the highest
support, confidence, and lift parameters.
The association method in the retail business is better
known as Market Basket Analysis (MBA) which means a
method for finding associations of what goods are likely to
be bought together by consumers in one transaction [12].
The association search process uses the apriori algorithm to
generate association rules from previously transformed
datasets [13]. The stages of forming association rules using
the apriori algorithm consisting of [14] :
High-frequency pattern analysis
The initial stage is to find a combination of items that
meet the minimum requirements of the support value.
Support means how many items/itemsets appear from the
whole transaction. The formula for finding the support
value of one item is as follows:
∑ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴
𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 (𝐴) =
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
The formula for finding the support value for two items is
as follows:
∑ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴 𝑑𝑎𝑛 𝐵
𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 (𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) =
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
Establishment of association rules
After the results of the high-frequency pattern are
found, then look for association rules based on the
minimum requirements of the confidence value.
Confidence means how often item A is purchased together
with item B. The formula for finding the confidence value
is as follows:
∑ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴 𝑑𝑎𝑛 𝐵
𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 = 𝑃(𝐵|𝐴) =
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐴
Association rules test
To find out if the association rule is strong or not, it can
be calculated again with the lift value. The association rule
is valid if it produces value > 1, meaning that in the
transaction, products A and B are purchased
simultaneously, and there are benefits from the rule. The
higher the lift value, the greater the strength of the
association.
𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 (𝐴 ∩ 𝐵)
𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑡 =
𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐴 𝑥 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝐵
III. RESEARCH METHOD
This study uses qualitative research methods that aim to
find answers to an event or question through systematic
scientific procedures and is carried out using various
methods such as interviews, observations, and documents
[15]. Primary data come from interviews and company
sales transaction data from HRD Manager. The secondary
 The 10th International Conference on Cyber and IT Service Management (CITSM 2022)
Yogyakarta, September 20-21, 2022

data comes from journals and books related to research. 7. Conclusion

The stages or processes in this research can be seen in The last stage is drawing conclusions based on the
Figure 2 below. objectives and essential points of the author's
research.
IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
START
CV. XYZ sales transaction data in 2021 is converted
into tabulated data, then processed using the RapidMiner
application. In the RapidMiner application, several
Data & operators are connected to process tabulated data to
Identification
Goal setting information generate consumer purchasing patterns. The operators used
of problem
collection are Read Excel, Select Attributes, Numerical to Binominal,
Remap Binominals, FP-Growth, and Create Association
Processing Method &
Rules.
Result
with algorithm
analysis
RapidMiner used

Conclusion

END

Fig 2. Flowchart Stages of Research

1. Identification of problems
The research stage begins with determining the Fig 3. RapidMiner Operators Used
research problem, namely CV. XYZ has a lot of sales
transaction data, but it is only used as an archive Determination of the minimum limit of support and
without being reused. Whereas the sales transaction confidence
data can be reprocessed to obtain critical information. The minimum support limit used is 0.015 because the
2. Goal setting number of item combinations appears most often three
Problems identified then determine the objectives to times. The items sold are of many types, which are not
proportional to the number of purchases. The minimum
be achieved, one of which is finding consumer
confidence limit used is 0.4 to produce the best association
purchasing patterns from large sales transaction data.
rules.
To accomplish this goal, one must study various
literature relevant to the research problem. Literature
Association rules results
can be in journals or books on data mining that use
association methods with apriori algorithms. The picture below is a result of the association rules
3. Data and information collection from CV. XYZ sales transaction data in 2021 produced by
Observations and direct interviews with companies RapidMiner.
can be carried out to determine the problem clearly
and obtain sales transaction data in 2021, which will
be processed to find association rules.
4. Methods and algorithms used
Processing of sales transaction data in 2021 that has
been obtained will be processed using the association
method with the apriori algorithm.
5. Processing with RapidMiner
The author uses the RapidMiner application to Fig 4. Association Rules 2021 in RapidMiner
process sales transaction data in 2021 by entering
tabulation data into the RapidMiner application to The result of association rules produces four rules. The
find the rules for the sales transaction data. explanation are:
6. Result analysis Rule 1 : If you buy PN 0773, you have 41.7% chance of
The author will then analyze the association rules buying PN 0844. The strength of the relationship is 9.25
generated from the RapidMiner application to obtain Rule 2 : If you buy PN 0844, you have 50% chance of
other important information.
 The 10th International Conference on Cyber and IT Service Management (CITSM 2022)
Yogyakarta, September 20-21, 2022
buying PN 0773. The strength of the relationship
is 9.25.
Rule 3 : If you buy PN 0814, you have 50% chance of
buying PN 1076. The strength of the relationship
is 18.5.
Rule 4 : If you buy PN 1076, you have 83.3% chance of
buying PN 0814. The strength of the relationship
is 18.5.
Confidence (%) Lift
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0 on the highest confidence can be placed side by side
PN 0773 ⇒ PN 0844 ⇒ PN 0814 ⇒ PN 1076 ⇒
PN 0844 PN 0773 PN 1076 PN 0814
Fig 5. Association Rules Graph in 2021
Association rules result analysis
Analysis of the results of association rules is needed to find
out more about the rules generated by RapidMiner.
1. Category
The Pants category dominated the association rules
from sales transaction data in 2021.
2. The highest support
Four resulting rules get the same high support,
meaning that the combination of these items often
appears throughout the transaction.
3. The highest confidence
The highest confidence from rule number 4 (PN 1076
⇒ PN 0814) means that two items are the most
frequently purchased together by consumers.
4. The highest lift
The highest lift is from rule number 3 (PN 0814 ⇒ PN
1076) and rule number 4 (PN 1076 ⇒ PN 0814),
meaning that the resulting association rules have the
most excellent/valid association strength compared to
association rules number 1 and 2.
5. The best association rules
Rule number 4 is the best association rule because the
confidence and lift produced are the greatest, meaning
in 2021, most consumers often buy Pants 1076 and
Pants 0814 together.
6. The similarity of confidence from the resulting lift
(PN 0844 ⇒ PN 0773) and (PN 0814 ⇒ PN 1076)
produced the same confidence but the lift produced
was different, meaning that the resulting association
strength would be slightly reduced.
7. The similarity of support from the resulting
confidence and lift
From the resulting association rules, we can see that
the resulting support is the same high, but that does
not mean that the confidence and lift generated are
also the same. For example, rule number 1 produces
lower confidence and lift than other association rules.
V. CONCLUSION
The attributes are contained in CV. XYZ sales
transaction data can be used to perform data mining
analysis using the association method with the apriori
algorithm assisted by the RapidMiner application.
Companies can find the relationship of goods with one
another from many sales transactions. This can be seen
from the four association rules produced by RapidMiner
that the Pants category is the most often purchased together,
especially the type PN 1076 ⇒ PN 0814. The best
association rules can be used as recommendations for
companies to produce goods the following year.
The arrangement of goods based on the highest support
can be placed at the beginning because consumers most
often purchase these items. The collection of goods based
because consumers will buy these items together. Another
thing that can be done is the creation of a sales brochure
that places items with the best association rules on one page
so that consumers can easily see these items.
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