Power Law of Customers' Expenditures in Convenience Stores

TL;DR

This study reveals that customer expenditures in convenience stores follow a consistent power law distribution with an exponent of -2.5, regardless of location, shopper demographics, or timing, highlighting a universal spending pattern.

Contribution

It demonstrates that customer expenditure distributions in convenience stores follow a universal power law with a specific exponent, independent of various contextual factors.

Findings

Expenditure distribution follows a power law with exponent -2.5.

The power law exponent is invariant across different locations and shopper demographics.

Customer spending patterns exhibit a universal distribution regardless of time or day.

Abstract

In a convenience store chain, a tail of the cumulative density function of the expenditure of a person during a single shopping trip follows a power law with an exponent of -2.5. The exponent is independent of the location of the store, the shopper's age, the day of week, and the time of day.