I quote Pole's quote from the New York Times verbatim

[rochon.a1.119]

Andrew Pole, the person responsible for creating the algorithm, had recently been a statistician at the company when colleagues asked him if it was possible to create an algorithm that could predict customers' pregnancies even before they did.

As explained in The New York Times article , parents are the holy grail of retailers, yet most of them don't buy toys at, say, Target.

If they wanted to do it, they would go to a toy store and the same if they wanted supplies for the pantry.

However, Pole (the creator of the algorithm) believed that the behavior of an American father could change just before the birth of a child.

So Target's idea was to get there before other retailers (competition) knew the customer's status.

The intention of the store was to create personal messages in the second greece phone number list trimester of pregnancy, which is when women start buying all kinds of new things related to their pregnancy and the birth of the baby:

As soon as we get them buying diapers from us, they're going to start buying everything else too. If you're rushing through the store, looking for bottles, and you pass orange juice, you'll grab a carton. Oh, and there's that new DVD I want. Soon, you'll be buying cereal and paper towels from us, and keep coming back.

— Andrew Pole of Target for the NYT

Pole believed that as soon as the store got them to buy diapers, customers would start buying everything else.