Wednesday 30 December 2009

Tesco Finder - The Top 100 Searched Products

I'm a big fancier of statistics, me, so I thought I'd treat you to the most popular search for products from our Tesco Finder app for iPhone/iPod Touch!
All search requests are entirely anonymous and we throw away the server logs after 24 hours, but the database keeps a note of the actual search text, the date/time of the request, the Tesco store whose range was being searched, the time it took to process the request, and the number of products that were returned - all so I can keep a check on quality assurance.
There's been nearly a quarter of a million searches since we launched the app a few weeks ago, so there's a nice build of stats to reveal all.
Firstly, the top 100 most searched for products:

Rank

Product

Count

1

milk

5955

2

bread

4474

3

beans

2477

4

cheese

2464

5

eggs

2148

6

condoms

1870

7

beer

1483

8

coke

1481

9

DVD

1474

10

baked beans

1345

11

durex

1264

12

wine

1108

13

coffee

1037

14

sugar

1014

15

marmite

941

16

apples

889

17

tv tesco

836

18

iPod

829

19

chicken

780

20

pizza

764

21

crisps

724

22

vodka

673

23

tea

671

24

chocolate

652

25

(null)

638

26

Stella

634

27

apple

628

28

ps3

624

29

bananas

617

30

rice

602

31

xbox

600

32

bacon

597

33

cornflakes

597

34

wii

590

35

call of duty

589

36

condom

584

37

pasta

574

38

butter

552

39

jam

545

40

iPhone

522

41

fosters

490

42

soup

489

43

ketchup

485

44

onions

485

45

carrots

484

46

toothpaste

472

47

nappies

464

48

pringles

455

49

television

444

50

chips

417

51

laptop

403

52

fish

397

53

coca cola

392

54

weetabix

377

55

pepsi

371

56

lager

370

57

champagne

368

58

tampax

365

59

cake

357

60

salt

352

61

ham

351

62

banana

348

63

cat food

346

64

turkey

339

65

jack daniels

335

66

toilet roll

332

67

cider

330

68

shampoo

325

69

dog food

321

70

lynx

320

71

baileys

318

72

peas

312

73

olives

301

74

toys

297

75

tuna

296

76

coconut milk

295

77

sausages

295

78

potatoes

294

79

cereal

289

80

cd tesco

287

81

games

287

82

water

282

83

flour

282

84

pampers

281

85

cola

275

86

whisky

273

87

walkers

263

88

quorn

261

89

beef

258

90

egg

253

91

salmon

252

92

custard

251

93

Christmas

249

94

popcorn

248

95

ice cream

247

96

marmots

247

97

sony

246

98

biscuits

245

99

playstation

245

100

futex

241

Interesting commentary here: you'll note that amongst the more standard products are 'condoms', 'condom', 'durex' and the iPhone auto-corrected version of durex (unless you override it): 'futex'. Add up these entries and the count rises to 3,959 which would rank at position 3!

Hmmm! Filter out the time-of-day to between 9pm and 2am, and the combination of 'condomic' words easily hits the number one spot. Now I'm no social commentator but do you agree that this evidence points to a certain sub-group of iPhone user who may well be showing off the app to his mates - in the pub - than genuinely trying to find anything in their local Tesco?...

The most popular search hour:

Rank

Hour starting

Count

1

21:00

18508

2

22:00

17964

3

20:00

17777

4

19:00

17241

5

18:00

16211

6

17:00

14644

7

14:00

14177

8

13:00

14027

9

23:00

13591

10

15:00

13336

11

16:00

13212

12

12:00

12069

13

11:00

10861

14

10:00

10346

15

9:00

9377

16

0:00

8004

17

8:00

7044

18

7:00

4768

19

1:00

4142

20

2:00

2205

21

6:00

1784

22

3:00

1349

23

5:00

1302

24

4:00

1042

This is less of a surprise - the most searches are being conducted in the evening; again only my own thoughts but I think people are heading home from work and want to get in and out of Tesco quickly. The searches get more frequent as the evening progresses and I'm guessing Tesco Finder users are tired and just want to find the products they need quickly. It's interesting to note that people were searching happily for products right through the night!

Finally searches by day of week:

Rank

Day

Count

1

Sunday

40147

2

Saturday

39287

3

Friday

34754

4

Monday

34316

5

Tuesday

33226

6

Wednesday

31829

7

Thursday

31422

This is fairly consistent use throughout the week, although it's interesting to note that the most searches are being conducted during the restricted trading hours on a Sunday.

I'll be passing the full log to the insight team who, I'm sure, will come up with even more interesting information such as the patterns of product searching that vary by time, and searching for products by store. For example, if a particular store has more searches for a particular product than the 'norm', does that mean that the product concerned is more difficult to find than we thought?

Whatever the analysis, it's nice to think that Tesco Finder may well help to improve the ability for customers to find products in our stores.