Shopping missions: An analytical method for the identification of shopper need states

Shoppers enter stores to meet diverse need states, such as getting a soft drink and a bag of potato chips for immediate consumption or purchasing ingredients for meals to make on the same day. The present article introduces the concept of a shopping mission that can be identified by the complementarity and sales affinity among the balanced number of product categories in trips with relatively concrete goals. The authors develop an analytical method to identify several shopping missions at the store level and demonstrate the utility, validity, and replicability of this method using a data set with 4 million baskets from a multinational supermarket chain. The authors also provide evidence that the identification of shopping missions offers a wealth of opportunities for targeted shopper marketing activities.