A Method to Translate Customers’ Actions in Store into the Answers of Questionnaire for Conjoint Analysis

This paper proposes a new method for analyzing people’s hidden intention that is made from the combining of old statistical method and new IT tools. We extend conjoint analysis so as to it can deal with something other than questionnaires. Conjoint analysis is a statistical technique to reveal customers’ invisible preference using series of questions regarding tradeoffs in products. The proposed method interprets customers’ actions in store, such as flow line or sojourn time, as the series of questions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method through the experiments done in a convenience store. The results of the experiments show that the preference of the customers is clearly changed between before and after meal.