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FOOD STAPLES SUCH AS BREAD and milk often are placed at opposite ends of a supermarket. This requires customers to walk across the store — past a wide range of temptations — to fill their baskets with necessities.

People buying electronics, however, are less likely to traipse the floor of a retail outlet looking for what they want. For Best Buy, the trick was finding which products might trigger additional purchases, and then laying out its stores so those items would be right in the middle.

The answer? The chain is using analytics to influence product placement and promotions, as well as follow-up communications to customers.

When Best Buy created a visual representation of product affinity, it found that people who bought computer hardware and a joystick usually bought video games too. The firm stores nine years of transaction information on its database, and is able to analyze consecutive as well as concurrent purchases.

Best Buy relies on Peacock, a transaction analysis program from Fair Isaac, to uncover and visually map correlated products. The firm has broken its customer base into cohorts, and made determinations (based on a variety of demographic information) regarding a given customer's next likely purchase.

Besides influencing retail layout, Peacock lets the company design package bundles, according to Jane Johnson, Fair Isaac's vice president for retail markets, speaking at last month's National Center for Database Marketing conference in Orlando, FL.

For instance, when a male consumer fitting Best Buy's “Barry” profile buys a home theater, he's probably going to toss a full installation program — all the bells and whistles — into his shipping basket. Best Buy approaches him by touting its upscale, or European, appliance offerings.

“Buzz,” however, is more of a one-off technology buyer. He may have a Best Buy credit card, but he's more worried about getting his plasma TV home than buying the full installation package. To woo him, the company must emphasize the “coolness” factor.

What's next? Best Buy is intent on using Peacock for “trigger event” campaigns, making its research findings available for comment by general managers, and analyzing how online shoppers differ from brick-and-mortar customers.