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Why do you assume that retail companies are not looking at data already? Target was (in)famously able to predict that a teenager was pregnant before she herself

Why do you assume that retail companies are not looking at data already? Target was (in)famously able to predict that a teenager was pregnant before she herself knew based on her shopping habits. It's entirely possible that retail companies are already following a close to optimal strategy (don't sell too many items at such a low price because they're a loss leader?).

fjsolwmv 7y ago
That's not what happened, and you should reflect on what made you think such an absurd claim is true. Target noticed she was pregnant before her father noticed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > That's not what happened, and you should reflect on what made you think such an absurd claim is true. OK, that's not what happened, but I don't see why you're calling the claim absurd. It is unusual-but-routine for women to present with health complaints that are caused by their own pregnancy, without necessarily having realized they were pregnant. Sometimes that health complaint is "I'm in labor". (To get to that point, you have to be really fat, but it does happen.)
- tylerhou 7y ago
  Sorry -- I misremembered the story. But as another commenter notes, it's routine for women to not know they are pregnant [0]. So my claim is not "absurd", and I don't feel any need to "reflect" on my actions. The patronization is not necessary. The main intent of my anecdote is to show how retail companies are already analyzing data. And I think it's foolish to assume that we (i.e. people working directly in tech) know better than the people who are working in tech + retail. (Many retail stores are on the technical bleeding edge - Target spins up K8 clusters in each store [1]!) [0] https://www.webmd.com/baby/features/can-you-be-pregnant-not-know-it#1 https://www.webmd.com/baby/features/can-you-be-pregnant-not-... [1] https://tech.target.com/infrastructure/2018/06/20/enter-unimatrix.html https://tech.target.com/infrastructure/2018/06/20/enter-unim...

fjsolwmv 7y ago

That's not what happened, and you should reflect on what made you think such an absurd claim is true. Target noticed she was pregnant before her father noticed. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> That's not what happened, and you should reflect on what made you think such an absurd claim is true. OK, that's not what happened, but I don't see why you're calling the claim absurd. It is unusual-but-routine for women to present with health complaints that are caused by their own pregnancy, without necessarily having realized they were pregnant. Sometimes that health complaint is "I'm in labor". (To get to that point, you have to be really fat, but it does happen.)
tylerhou 7y ago
Sorry -- I misremembered the story. But as another commenter notes, it's routine for women to not know they are pregnant [0]. So my claim is not "absurd", and I don't feel any need to "reflect" on my actions. The patronization is not necessary. The main intent of my anecdote is to show how retail companies are already analyzing data. And I think it's foolish to assume that we (i.e. people working directly in tech) know better than the people who are working in tech + retail. (Many retail stores are on the technical bleeding edge - Target spins up K8 clusters in each store [1]!) [0] https://www.webmd.com/baby/features/can-you-be-pregnant-not-know-it#1 https://www.webmd.com/baby/features/can-you-be-pregnant-not-... [1] https://tech.target.com/infrastructure/2018/06/20/enter-unimatrix.html https://tech.target.com/infrastructure/2018/06/20/enter-unim...