Is this brand ephemeral? A multivariate tree-based decision analysis of new product sustainability

Decision tree methodology has become an increasingly important tool set in the field of decision science. We develop a multivariate, tree-based decision system for a new application: the determination of whether a newly launched consumer product should be allowed to continue in a highly competitive market. The system is designed to overcome a shortcoming–the inability to capture multivariate interactions–of traditional decision methods. We apply the proposed method to an instant noodle sales data set that contains 38 million transactions, and compare results across several methods.