Health and Beauty
By Lawrence D'Addio
Looking at the data in its raw form for analysis was intimidating proposition. Especially with the realization that there were initially 862 items to analyze. To tackle this incredible task of analysis, we took all the data and broke it down into several smaller task and departments. The departments being: Health and Beauty, Home and Kitchen, Sports and Outdoors, Babies and Toys, Computers and Electronics, and Clothing. We then scrubbed all the data of null values and zeros to bolster our analysis.
Then, we created tableaus of the data that represented each department. The graph above represents all the data concerning Health and Beauty, which consist of 316 products. The graph is a collection of information about Amazon and Costco’s products. It contains information about their average price, average customer ratings, total customer ratings, differences in individual product prices, which company offered more items for less, and which company was cheaper by average price per product.
Before my team and I started analyzing the data, my belief was that Amazon had lower prices than Costco. The notion that Amazon has lower prices than its competitors, is a common belief among consumers. So, we were eager to analyze the data and judge for ourselves. More importantly, we wanted to know why these companies are so successful in world where e-commerce ever-present.
Between the two companies, Costco had the lower average price for Health and Beauty products at $28.87. While the average prices on Amazon’s website managed to be higher at $37.64. On average, Costco was $8.77 cheaper than Amazon. But, not all items from the data correlated with the averages. Items like the AllerClear non-drowsy allergy meds were cheaper on Amazon than they were on Costco surprisingly because they are a Kirkland brand. They were cheaper by $1.58. Airborne Immune Support Supplements was also cheaper on Amazon by $3.79. One A Day Women’s Multivitamin was cheaper by $5.43 and California Pure Naturals Organic Facial Hydrator Set was cheaper by $2 on Amazon.
It was a shock to see how much of a savings Costco provided its customers. Interestingly, Amazon had only 149 items available for analysis, while Costco had 167 items available for analysis. The reason for this discrepancy in item totals for analysis came as a result of the data scrubbing of null values and zeros. Even with a lower item count, Amazon products still managed to cost more on average than Costco.
Looking at the review scores, Costco scored an average product rating of 4.4 stars out of 5, while Amazon products scored an average of 4.3 stars out of 5. Of the items surveyed, Costco had a staggering 18,167 more reviews for their products than Amazon, with a total of 35,445 reviews. Out of 149 items Amazon only had 17,278 reviews. I found it incredibly interesting that there was such a large disparity in total reviews for their products. The good news at least when looking at the average and totals for reviews for Amazon, is that products are as good as Costco’s. Also, when Amazon customers decide to leave a review, they are just as happy with the quality of their products, as Costco customers are with their products.
My final thoughts on the overall data of Health and Beauty products of Costco and Amazon, were that Costco products seemed to offer a better value. Even with the discrepancy item totals, Costco’s products on average were $8.77 cheaper than what was offered on Amazon’s website. What I think makes these companies successful is their product quality, their customer bases, and the customer’s perception of value. These two companies depend on all three of these components to achieve their success. Their product ratings speak to the high quality of the products they sell. They both nearly earned perfect score for their average product ratings. Regarding Costco, the number of ratings speaks to the trust between Costco and its customers. Discrepancy of their rating totals might be attributed to the type of customer shopping at Costco and Amazon. Costco customers because of the perceived value of savings might have been more likely to leave a rating for products they liked.