Yifan Cao, an MSc Business Analytics student at WBS, has won the First Prize of the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) Masters Research Dissertation Programme in 2017, coming with a cash award of £500.

The CDRC is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and consists of researchers at Leeds, UCL, Liverpool and Oxford. The Master Research Dissertation Programme links retailers with students nationally who conduct analytic research on retail data.

Yifan conducted an empirical study using online grocery sales data from Sainsbury’s to model customer choice behaviour in the context of delivery time slot selection. Specifically, she devised and estimated the parameters of a nested choice model that first considers the choice of the day of delivery, followed by choice of the time slot within a given day. The choice model has been validated using some holdout sample data and has been found to predict slot choice behaviour very well. The output of this work can be used, for example, to improve the efficiency of home delivery logistics.

Generally, all the projects this year were really good so it was a particular achievement.

Guy Lansley, CDRC

Yifan’s project broke new ground for Sainsbury’s in providing a methodologically robust analysis of the interaction between the slots offered to customers and their likelihood of their placing orders. Her approach is being integrated within our in-house tools for the management of slot availability to optimise performance of the Sainsbury’s Online business. We thank Yifan for her valuable contribution.
Joel Lindop, Online Forecasting & Optimistion Manager at Sainsbury’s

Yifan produced excellent work on a challenging topic; the estimation of a choice model as complex as this is not trivial. She overcame major technical obstacles, and provided the retailer with valuable insights.

Arne Strauss, Course Director MSc Business Analytics (and Yifan’s dissertation supervisor)