Smells like Teem Spirits

Great modelling is dependent on a great data set to train a model on. Contrary to all the advanced AI guff you see on LinkedIn, this requires hard graft, domain knowledge and initiative. There is no magic AI button to press when you leave the office and a model to use when you come back in the morning.

You may have read articles criticising AI for bias. A potential source of bias is errors in the training set. False positives and false negatives make for a bad model. At Fable Data we tag our European panel of anonymised consumer spend against traded companies, their main competitors and other merchants in the sector. Our clients need to know how Costa Coffee, now owned by Coca Cola [NYSE: KO], Caffè Nero Group [taken private in 2007] and the rest of the coffee market is trending. We go to great lengths to create accurate training datasets that cover every angle of consumer spend from ASOS to the Zoological Society of London and everything in between.

We must be able to correctly identify Premier Stores (Booker Group, Parent Tesco Group PLC LSE: TSCO) from billions of transaction string patterns. Here are a few examples of possible matches for Premier Stores. Which ones do you think are valid? The correct answers are at the bottom.

  1. premier teem , spirits , stockport gb
  2. ppoint_*premier conv s
  3. card payment to premier innnnnnnnnn,65. 00 gbp, rate 1./00/gbp on –nn-nn-nnnn
  4. lnk premier wf4 4nf
  5. premier , drighlington gb , cash back
  6. notemac, premier, @hh:mm
  7. cash bnkm, premier food@hh:mm
  8. pontlliw premier
  9. card payment to premier stores 17775,23. 70 gbp, rate 1./00/gbp on –nn-nn-nnnn
  10. to premier account -nnnnnn-nnnnnnnn

Photo: Google Street View

How many did you get right? Three are spend on goods at Premier Stores. Seven could be miss-classified were we not on top of the detail.

  1. premier teem , spirits , stockport gb
  2. ppoint_*premier conv s PayPoint
  3. card payment to premier innnnnnnnnn,65. 00 gbp, rate 1./00/gbp on -nn-nn-nnnn
  4. lnk premier wf4 4nf ATM
  5. premier , drighlington gb , cash back
  6. cash notemac, premier, @hh:mm ATM
  7. cash bnkm, premier food@hh:mm ATM
  8. pontlliw premier
  9. card payment to premier stores 17775,23. 70 gbp, rate 1./00/gbp on -nn-nn-nnnn
  10. to premier account -nnnnnn-nnnnnnnn Bank Transfer

Sometimes only a Google Street View search can confirm if a merchant is a Premier Store or not.