Identifying the Vips at Etots

2 Pages Posted: 30 May 2017

See all articles by Phillip E. Pfeifer

Phillip E. Pfeifer

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Paul Farris

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Ichiro Vic Shiraki

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

Abstract

This case contains the instructions for a hands-on data-mining exercise. The purpose of the exercise is to identify high value customers of an online retailer in order to give them VIP treatment. The exercise uses purchase data for 60,000 customers. The background is described in "Customer Care at eTots.com" (UVA-M-0649).

Excerpt

UVA-M-0650

Rev. Mar. 25, 2014

IDENTIFYING THE VIPS AT ETOTS

In this exercise, you will be asked to “identify” the VIP customers in the test set of 30,000 customers. Data for the test set of customers are found in the “VIP Exercise Decision Set” file (UVA-M-0649X2). Remember that the customers in the test set are identical to the customers in the training set (UVA-M-0649X1) in almost every way. The test group contains 10,000 customers who purchased during Holiday 2000 and 20,000 who did not. The test set and training set are split samples of an original set of 60,000 customers.

We know the Holiday 2000 purchase results for the new group of customers but have not included them in the file “VIP Exercise Decision Set” (UVA-M-0649X2). The two held-out variables (Holiday 2000 repeat and Holiday 2000 MVA) are found in the faculty spreadsheet file “VIP Exercise Secret Answers” (UVA-M-0649TNX), which your instructors will use to evaluate and score your team's performance on this exercise.

You must decide which of the 30,000 customers in the test group to designate for VIP treatment. You will submit your decisions in an Excel file containing two columns. The first column should contain the 30,000 customer IDs. The second column should contain a 0/1 variable, where 1 represents VIP treatment and 0 represents regular treatment.

. . .

Keywords: data analysis, marketing management

Suggested Citation

Pfeifer, Phillip E. and Farris, Paul and Shiraki, Ichiro Vic, Identifying the Vips at Etots. Darden Case No. UVA-M-0650, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2974662 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2974662

Phillip E. Pfeifer (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
434-924-4803 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/Pfeifer.htm

Paul Farris

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
434-924-0524 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/farris.htm

Ichiro Vic Shiraki

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
7
Abstract Views
513
PlumX Metrics