Kroger, a large, nation-wide grocery company, maintains a customer reward system titled the “Kroger Plus Shopper’s Card”. Customers who enroll in this system are entitled to discounts on products at Kroger stores and Kroger gasoline. To earn discounts and other rewards, the shopper must use the “Kroger Plus” card at the time of checkout. The card has a bar code that identifies the customer. For Kroger, the system allows the opportunity to determine customer buying patterns and to use this data for data mining.
Required:Using a Web search engine, search for “data mining’ and grocery. Describe what type of information grocery stores collect that they can use for data mining purposes. Also, describe how grocery chains use data mining to improve performance.