It’s Tuesday June 25 2024, I’m on my way to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport to catch a flight back home to Montreal, Canada. As I approach the vicinity of the airport, I receive a text message from the airline informing me that my flight is delayed by three hours. Well that’s unfortunate, at least it’s still early in the day and I’ll be able to find a peaceful place to sit down to read my book. I clear customs, go through security and make my way to Terminal 3. Just like every other time I’ve travelled, I make a necessary stop at the duty-free store. While applying one of my favourite skincare products, Crème de La Mer, I wondered: How much am I really saving by purchasing products at the airport duty-free store? With three hours to spare at the airport, l use this as an opportunity to collect data and get started on my new project! To all skincare enthusiast and La Mer lovers, I will be comparing product selection, availability and pricing at three different purchase locations: Chicago O’Hare Terminal 3 duty-free store, Chicago O’Hare duty-free website and La Mer’s official USA website.
It’s the 1950’s, an aerospace physicist named Dr. Max Huber was involved in a chemical explosion that left him with severe burns while working in his lab based in San Diego, California. While searching for a remedy to aid his healing process, he realized there was no product available in the market that could repair and restore his skin to its original condition. This marked the beginning of his 12-year journey to creating the iconic skin-healing formulation behind the La Mer brand: The Miracle Broth™. With the power of physics and biology, Dr. Hubert would expose the elixir made out of Macrocystis pyrifera (Giant Sea Kelp) to light and sound waves during its fermentation process to reveal and enhance it’s anti-aging and healing properties. This fermentation process is a labour-intensive and lengthy process that can take up to four months from the moment the kelps are harvested. Hence, the substantial price tag that customers are willing to pay to acquire La Mer products. Up to this date, Crème De La Mer, Dr. Huber’s first ever and sole product developed during his lifetime remains La Mer’s best-seller and signature product.
The data collection process begins at the Chicago O’Hare (ORD) International Airport. The first data collection method involves visiting the ORD duty-free shop in Terminal 3, where I physically took pictures of every La Mer product available and saved the information in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. The second data collection method utilizes the ORD duty-free website, which includes a total of three duty-free shops at the airport and this data is also stored in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Finally, the third data collection method consists of using a simple Python web scraping program to extract information from the official La Mer USA website.
Data Source Information
| id | description | data_collection_source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ORD duty-free store (terminal 3) | In-person |
| 2 | ORD duty-free website (all duty-free stores) | https://chicago.shopdutyfree.com/en/catalogsearch/result/q=la+mer&sorter_best_sellers=best_sellers |
| 3 | La mer official USA website | https://cremedelamer.com |
There are two types of data sources used in this analysis:
