Britain grocery store explores weather prediction

Tesco, the largest grocery chain in Britain, is exploring a new kind of data-mining technology to save cost. A six-person research team developed a computer software that calculates shopping patterns based on weather prediction.

Research showed that changes in weather often affect people's shopping behavior.

Supermarkets that stocked more meat and other barbecue foods in anticipation of sunshine could be left with the food unsold because of unpredicted rain and cold weather. A 10 degree Centigrade (18 degree Fahrenheit) temperature increase generally triples sales of barbecue meat and increases demand for lettuce by 50 percent, Tesco said.

It's pretty amazing what data-mining technology can help business these days. I wonder in the near future if we will see similar software programs to help individuals to shop based on aggregated set of contextual information, such as bank account balance, weather and day of the month?

Source: Some Rain and Clouds With That Rib Eye?, NYTimes