This document discusses analyzing correlations between sales, marketing, and demographic data. It provides examples of how retailers can use various data sources and APIs to correlate factors like weather, gas prices, unemployment rates, and demographics with retail sales and customer behavior. Visualization tools like Excel, Power BI, and Power Map are recommended to analyze and visualize correlated data from sources like Yelp, Foursquare, public data sets, and demographic data to gain customer insights.

1. Analyzing Correlations
between Sales, Marketing and
Demographic Data
ShiSh
Retail Industry Solutions Director
Microsoft Corp
Twitter: @5h15h
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/shishs
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2. Source: http://xkcd.com/552/
The coffee hour that's
best for blood sugar
Eating pizza 'cuts cancer
risk'

3. The Oprah Effect

4. Image owner: jayfarm1980
Shared using Creative Commons from LINK
Beer & Football

5. Beer & Diapers
Image owner: ocbeejay
Shared using Creative Commons from LINK

6. •Watch out for Bias
•Check for Patterns, not Single
Matches
•Check Multiple Sources of
Information
Source: http://blog.8thandwalton.com/2013/02/correlation-is-not-causation-even-in-retail-link/
Correlation is not Causation

7. How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was
Pregnant Before Her Father Did
Shopping Patterns Reflect Life Changes
Data from Sales Corelated to Birth Registry to determine patterns
Attempt to get better customer insights & predict what customers want before they tell you

8. Example Scenario: Listening to the Voice
of the Customer
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Sales Forecast
Traditional Cameras Digital Cameras
Extrapolated Forecast Actual Data

9. How Weather Influences Sales
9
Source: Fortune Magazine

10. Data Brokers

11. Data Markets

12. 2. Create a Yelp
Account and Get an
API Key
1. Download the Power BI
Excel Addins for Excel 2013
from http://bit.ly/135AXcs

13. Some of the APIs you can use for getting Correlation Data

14. Demographic data from Azure
Data Market

16. Source for Seattle City Data

17. http://api.yelp.com/business_review_search?term=Sta
rbucks&location=Seattle&ywsid=YourAPIKey
Use
From Web

20. Seattle Area Starbucks
Foursquare CheckIns Visualized
using Heatmaps via Excel, Power
Query and Power Map

21. This Starbucks in Kent, WA has
the most Foursquare activity

22. Seattle area Groupon
Deals visualized using
Excel, Power Query &
Power Map

23. Analysis
of QFC &
Safeway in
Seattle
Correlate Demographic
data for each store
location

24. Hipster Alert 
Data Acquired using Power
Query from Yelp &
visualized with Power Map
in Excel 2013

25. Public Parking Data
Obtained from
http://data.seattle.gov Restaurant Data from Yelp

26. Correlation Coefficient
Quick Reference for calculation Pearson's Correlation Coefficient : http://bit.ly/1depeRL
• Impact of Weather on Sales
• How does the average age / income / education impact sales of specific
categories
• How does changes in gas price impact specific retail categories and
segments
• How does changes in unemployment rate affect retail categories

27. Data Analysis Toolpak enables
calculation of Correlation
Coefficient in Excel

28. Key Influencers
• Uses Naïve Bayes Data Mining Algorithm
Data Mining Addins for Excel

29. Resources
• Power BI Downloads: http://office.microsoft.com/en-
us/excel/power-bi-FX104080667.aspx
• Yelp API: http://www.yelp.com/developers
• Foursquare API: https://developer.foursquare.com/
• Apigee : http://www.apigee.com
• Windows Azure Marketplace: https://datamarket.azure.com/
• The ShiSh List: http://blogs.msdn.com/shishirs
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/msretail