Pareto law of the expenditure of a person in convenience stores

Takayuki Mizuno, Masahiro Toriyama, Takao Terano and Misako Takayasu

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2008, vol. 387, issue 15, 3931-3935

Abstract: We study the statistical laws of the expenditure of a person in convenience stores by analyzing around 100 million receipts. The density function of expenditure exhibits a fat tail that follows a power law. Using the Lorenz curve, the Gini coefficient is estimated to be 0.70; this implies that loyal customers contribute significantly to a store’s sales. We observe the Pareto principle where both the top 25% and 2% of the customers account for 80% and 25% of the store’s sales, respectively.

Keywords: Point of sale; Power law; Gini coefficient; Pareto principle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:387:y:2008:i:15:p:3931-3935

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2008.01.059

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