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Retail audits |
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Although a common term in marketing research, we believe that in Ukraine retail audits must be carried out by partially forgetting what they teach you in the West. And reinventing some of the wheels - otherwise one ends up with incomprehensible and non-coherent sets of data.
The key parameters that we look at when carrying out retail audits are:
- in-store availability of product/brand;
- types of outlets (by owner, location, speciality);
- sales volume cross-tabbed with type and location;
- pricing of product/brand cross-tabbed with type/location of outlet;
- display value;
- customer demand;
- resulting market share and rank/position of product/brand.
We have extensive experience in conducting retail surveys, from measuring the total universe, to designing various retail samples. It must be noted that there are no readily available retail universe data in Ukraine (trust no one!).
The design of a retail audit is critical to the success of the project. We usually follow these steps:
- We never assume that our clients will mean the same thing under "retail audit". We always strive to define exactly the specific knowledge needs, and design the approach, methodology, and sample accordingly. Our experience has taught us that there can be no long-term representative samples. Each new project requires a revision of the existing sample size an structure in order to achieve credible results.
- Draft the research plan and schedule, indicating.
- scope and goals;
- optimal sample size, methods of collecting quantitative & qualitative data, etc.;
- deadlines;
- structure and format of reports.
- Fine-tuning and approval of research approach.
- Design and production of customized research tools.
- Launch and management of field research.
As a rule, we use the following field research methods:
- observation;
- face-to-face POS interviews;
- mistery shopping.
Note: do not expect data on opening stock/deliveries/closing stock, bar code data (scanning d-bases), audit code levels, etc. They are mostly non-existent.
- Data collection.
ADG usually breaks the sources down into three basic groups:
- “White area”: from official stats sources to fully legal retail;
- “Grey area”: includes medium and small wholesale, and kiosks (partial reporting) original, but locally unauthorized product;
- “Black area”: private entrepreneurs operating without a license, ad-hoc open air markets, van sales, babushkas, etc.
- Analysis and report writing.
After verification, the data are punched in (software and formats to be determined based on client needs), structured, analyzed, and presented as text, graphics, customized data bases, or a combination of these.
Our main rule is: there are no rules. We aim to cater for the individual needs of each client, instead of boasting "tried and tested samples with 99.9% validity or response".
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