The objective of this analysis is to assist the marketing department of Instacart - an online grocery delivery service - in gaining insight on the demographics of the customer base as well as purchasing trends. In doing so, we hope to glean of some information on how best to advertise the service to our customers to maximize profitability and growth.
The first objective was to look into the usage information of the app, specifically during what hours of the day were the most purchases made. After plotting the frequency of the orders by hour, I came to the conclusion that the most popular hours for purchases were between 9a and 4p. This fits into the common assumption that these hours are when people are most active throughout the day. I then wanted to see at what hour people spent the most money, and surprisingly enough it was during the off-peak hours, or those hours outside the 9a to 4p timeframe. This gave me a great time to suggest marketing during these off-peak hours, as customers are more willing to spend money at these times.
My next objective was to look at the demographics of the customer base in order to establish which groups of the population are more likely to use the service. For this, I looked not only at region of residence, but also age, income, and whether they had dependents. Using understood parameters for income brackets and medical definition of age levels, I flagged each customer under one of eighteen different categories. This allowed me to identify which groups were most common in the customer pool, and I determined that middle-class parents are most likely to use the service. Along with this information, I found that while the South has the most purchases through the service, the Midwest spends more money per order. This provides me with demographic information I need to recommend a course of action to Instacart.
Through this analysis, I was able to identify marketing targets for Instacart through the assessment of customer demographics, region of residence in the United States, and what days and times the most orders are placed. This will allow Instacart to not only effectively market their products and service, but ensure resource management to have the service operational during peak hours.
Github Repository
Instacart Excel Presentation
