Does Buying the Correct Battery for Your Car Make Any Difference?

1
Does Buying the Correct Battery for Your Car Make
Any Difference?

• Presented by
• Stephanie Thompson
• Merchandising Analyst
• AutoZone

2
Agenda

• Background
• The Question
• The Problem
• Program Development
• Procs Used
• Program Flow
• Howd it Work?

3
Background

• Generally, batteries are defined by Group Size
  (its shape) and Power (Cold Cranking Amps)
• AutoZone carries 4 tiers of batteries covering
  different group sizes and power levels

4
The Question

• Is battery life affected by installing a battery
  of a different group size and / or power than
  what is specified for your vehicle?

5
The Problem

• How do we determine all of the correct batteries
  for over 18,000 different vehicles?
• How can we evaluate millions of rows of warranty
  data?
• How can we tell if a battery purchase was correct
  or not considering direct fit and optional
  choices?

6
Program Development

• Gather warranty data that contains purchase date,
  part number, return date, and vehicle info. -
  proc SQL
• Determine if battery was returned - data step
• if yes determine how many days battery was in use
• if no determine how many days battery has been out

7
Program Development

• Gather general vehicle make, model, year
  information - proc SQL
• Match up to warranty data - data step
• Pull in vendor files from Excel for primary
  (direct fit) and secondary (optional) battery
  choices for each vehicle - proc import
• Put vendor files together with warranty data -
  proc SQL

8
Program Development

• Develop scheme to evaluate customers choice as
  correct or not on each file by primary or
  secondary options - data step (if then else)
• Remove bad matches from secondary file - proc SQL
• Merge both choice files together - data step
  (merge)

9
Program Development

• Develop scheme to designate any good choice as
  good - data step (if then else)
• Segregate returned batteries from those still out
  - proc SQL
• Evaluate life of returned and not returned
  batteries - proc univariate
• Determine purchase choice frequencies based on
  group size - proc tabulate

10
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11
Results?

• Battery life is dependant on purchasing a correct
  option
• Life is dependant on tier of battery purchased
• Unexpected result there were customers whose
  group size we did not carry trying to make a
  fit - this helped in making new stocking
  decisions