Inventory prediction and management in Nigeria using market basket analysis associative rule mining: memetic algorithm based approach

A key challenge in businesses today is determining inventory level for each product (to be) sold to clients. A pre-knowledge will suppress inventory stock-up and help avert unnecessary demurrage. It will also avoid stock out and avert loss of clients to competition. Study aims to unveil customer’s behavior in purchasing goods and thus, predict a next time purchase as well as serve as decision support to determine the required amount of each goods inventory. Study is conducted for Delta Mall (Asaba and Warri branches) department store. We adapt the memetic algorithm on market basket dataset to examine buying behavior of customers, their preference and frequency at which goods are purchased in common (basket). Result shows some items placed in basket allow customers to purchase items of similar value, or best combined with the selected items due to shelf-placement via concept of feature drift. Model yields 21-rules for eight items obtained from data transaction mining dataset acquired from Delta Mall.