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.
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