The ISMS Durable Goods Datasets

Abstract

This paper describes two new datasets available to academic researchers. The first is a panel dataset containing the transactions of 19,936 households made over the period from December 1998 to November 2004 at a major U.S. consumer electronics retailer. There are a total of 173,262 transactions, including purchases and returns of products as well as extended warranties. There are 16 product categories and 292 sub-categories, ranging from big ticket items such as televisions to small ticket items such as CDs and batteries. The second dataset features a field experiment for a Christmas promotion that took place in December 2003 in the form of a direct mailing sent to a randomly selected group of households at the end of November 2003. We describe the data and the research issues that can be potentially studied using these two durable goods datasets.

Keywords: retailer, durable goods, panel data, product adoption, holiday promotion, sales forecasting

JEL Classification: D12, L81, M31