Retail audit of street markets. Audit of outlets

The retail audit covers distribution channels such as supermarkets, shops, kiosks, pavilions, outdoor markets.

Retail audit allows you to study the various parameters of retail in dynamics: the range of goods of various groups in retail trade, placement of goods in commercial premises, variety of packages, price level of competing brands, etc. The information received is grouped according to various criteria (price groups, packaging, the presence of additives, etc.). Thus, a complete map of the positioning of the product group under study is formed. The value of such a picture lies in the possibility of projecting the data obtained onto the entire local market selected for the study, which is possible only with the correct selection of the sample. outlets.

Research tasks for which the retail-audit methodology is used:

• Monitoring and analysis of market prices over a selected period of time. The study includes a series of periodic price cuts of the market at certain intervals through an audit retail network and surveys of potential consumers.
• Formation of a database of enterprises Effective marketing policy – necessary condition successful operation of the company in the market. leadership of any commercial enterprises operating in the market of consumer goods, it is important to know where the outlets are located, through which it is possible to sell their products, and most importantly - how many outlets are still left without their attention. Sooner or later, every company faces the need to expand its customer base. As a result of the study, we get a complete database of enterprises in the region, which will allow us to expand our client base, organize promotions, organize our own research, and evaluate the competitive environment.

Cost of work

The cost of retail audit work is from 5 to 11 rubles per item.

Examples of our research

Poll on cigarettes (Home test)

On request: TNS-MITS, Moscow

Evaluation of the quality of work of employees of the network of furniture stores

By request: Information is confidential

Better to see once than hear a hundred times. Control technologies are based on this principle. retailers. For each type of monitoring, individual information collection cards and, if necessary, special equipment are developed. ScanMarket designs monitoring systems based on the requirements of accuracy and efficiency. This allows you to get quite detailed "photos" of how various sellers perform / do not comply with the conditions of cooperation with manufacturers / suppliers.

Work results

Depending on the goals of the project, the result may be a table or a full report with an analysis of the data obtained. For example, when analyzing the offer of the print media, the report includes the calculation of indicators:

• Representation (in general, by types of outlets, by operators, by days of the week, by districts);
• Price (as a whole, in sections);
• Laying out (as a whole, in sections);
• Seller's recommendations.

When measuring the supply of food products, the list of fixed parameters often includes several characteristics of the product (brand, manufacturer, mass / weight, packaging material, fat content, etc.). The monitoring results are used to improve the distribution policy, form partnerships with retail chains, control and stimulate (disincentive) retailers.

Complex of works

1. Determination of product characteristics and retail network parameters. Before monitoring, you need to select the parameters that will be monitored. To do this, at the initial stage of the study, expert interviews are conducted with representatives target group and employees of the customer company. Based on this information, a list of product characteristics (price, capacity, material and form of packaging, product display type, etc.) and retail network operation parameters (brands recommended by the seller) are formed, which will be studied in detail during marketing monitoring.
2. Formation of a sample of retail outlets. To obtain reliable data, it is necessary to correctly form a sample of retail outlets where observation will be carried out. The final sample must be, firstly, accurate (provided by a sufficient number of points under study), and secondly, representative (this property of the sample is achieved by a special system for selecting different types of points at which observation will be carried out). Information about retail outlets should be up to date and detailed.
3. Development of an observation list. An observation sheet is a specially designed form for recording information about the parameters that are being secretly monitored. The observation sheet should contain information about the parameters of the observation itself - the address and type of the point visited by the observer, the time of observation, and a number of other characteristics.
4. Hidden monitoring of the selected parameters: sales presentation, product display, prices, sellers' work, characteristics of the products presented. Covert surveillance is the field part of the project. Specially trained observers receive observation sheets, as well as, if necessary, additional illustrative materials with photographs of observed products and move along established routes.
5. Information reliability control. The monitoring conducted by the ScanMarket agency provides for the use of several means of control of employees who collect information.
6. Input, processing and analysis of the received information. Observation sheets are entered into the computer using automatic scanner input. Further, the agency's analysts carry out the necessary data coding, analyze them and build the necessary distributions in accordance with the goals and objectives of marketing research.

Some retail outlets require a special approach to conduct a retail audit. For example, in some hypermarkets, the security service suppresses attempts to enumerate the assortment, and in small clothing stores, all actions of the rewriter are in full view of the seller.

The ScanMarket agency carries out field work in any conditions. When developing a sheet, it is necessary to provide for an unambiguous interpretation of the observed parameters. For example, what should the observer indicate in the “Producer” column for the “House in the Village” milk - the company “Wimm-Bill-Dann” or “Lianozovo”? What to write down if the manufacturer's information is not visible? Working out these and similar details is an important preparatory part of the project. Its result is the compilation of special cards, which show photographs of the products of the main market operators.

In case of difficulties with determining the price or the availability of goods for sale, it is possible to obtain information from the seller. ScanMarket uses the ABBYY Flexi Capture optical recognition system - automatically scanned questionnaire entry eliminates manual entry errors and significantly reduces the time it takes to generate even a very large automated database.

Publishing house "RDV-Media"

The RDV-Media Publishing House actively cooperates with the ScanMarket agency.

Due to the wide range periodicals issued by our publishing house, the monitoring of the Moscow retail network is of particular interest.

Despite the fact that such work was regularly carried out on its own and part of the information can be obtained from distributors, ScanMarket's research turned out to be necessary and useful. The attractiveness of the results of this study is in the large coverage of retail outlets, the daily collection of information during the week and the adequate cost of work.

To carry out the project, the ScanMarket agency specially developed a methodology for collecting and processing information, which was based on our wishes expressed before the start of the project.

The report with the results of the study has a clear structure, is easy to use and will become a real tool for the work of our employees.

We express our gratitude to the ScanMarket agency for the high-quality work performed and look forward to conducting this study on a regular basis.

OOO "GidMarket"

Since 2007, the marketing agency GuideMarket LLC has been actively exploring the industrial markets of Russia, Kazakhstan, Europe and Asia. The main product of the agency is market analysis based on state statistics, paid bases, industry sources and open data.

The marketing agency "GidMarket" LLC expresses its sincere gratitude to the company "MA "Scanmarket" LLC for the fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation in field research.

We highly appreciate the level, efficiency and, most importantly, the timeliness of the solutions provided by your company. We are planning further cooperation with MA Scanmarket LLC in the field of b2c and b2b surveys, retail audits and in Mystery Shopper projects.

The success of the research done depends not only on the volume and quality of estimates, but mainly on how we analyze them and how we can make them work in the interests of the company. Using the example of a real study, we will demonstrate the results that Retail Audit can give us.

Material for work - table

For the work of analysts of a company that ordered a Retail Audit report, the main material is the table itself. As an example for the article, the results of Retail Audit were used in the form of several spreadsheets, each of which contains more than 2600 rows, that is, more than 2600 types of goods, and 28 columns with different sales characteristics of each type of product.
Companies that have commissioned a Retail Audit and received a report often use it as a reference for finding answers to the questions: "What is the average price of my brand in the supermarket?", "What is the average price of a competing brand?", and also "What is the numerical distribution both brands? The importance of answering such questions is undeniable. However, it is perplexing to deliberately limit the use of the Retail Audit report to only obtaining background information, especially when the selling company orders and receives such reports regularly.
In this case, the company has at its disposal material for analyzing the dynamics of the retail market and, in some cases, forecasting.
This article discusses a possible approach to working with Retail Audit data, and also provides an example of processing data from several Retail Audit reports for a specific product related to different time periods.

Purpose and objectives of audit analysis

The goals and objectives (or the need to form goals and objectives) that the company sets for itself determine the form and content of the questions, the answers to which should be given by the analysis of Retail Audit data.
Almost any company, when analyzing the market of its product using Retail Audit, wants to have an answer to such questions:

• What is the overall market for my product, how does its sales volume (average price, distribution*) change in retail?
• What is the number of market participants and brands present, how has it changed recently?
• Who are my competitors? Who is in a close position, retailing a product at the same price and in the same volume?
• How are my competitors doing? How are their retail sales changing? What are these changes compared to my brand's sales dynamics?
• What is the numerical distribution of my brand and competitors' brands? What changes have occurred in the size of the numerical distribution in recent years and how it affected sales volumes?
• What is the price of my brand and competitors' retail brands? How have prices changed recently?

Of course, it is far from always possible to formulate an absolutely adequate list of questions, if only because the actions of competitors are difficult to predict, and the whims of buyers are not obvious. It may be that the launch of a new packaging for a competitor brand product steadily increases consumer demand for all packaging options of this brand offered on the market. Such a conclusion may well be drawn based on the analysis of Retail Audit data, but it is rather difficult to predict such a situation in advance, and even more so to formulate it in the form of a specific question. The potential for unpredictable, non-obvious conclusions is one of the reasons that makes working with datasets exciting, leaving room for creativity.

Defining Analysis Parameters

Consider a company that sells product X. The company offers the consumer several brands of product X, the most popular of which is trademark N. The company is quite successful, is well known to the consumer and is one of the market leaders. For the next year, the company has set itself the goal of bringing a new brand of product X to the market and achieving a leading position in sales of a new brand of this product. The company has at its disposal several reports on the results of the Retail Audit of product X, performed during the last 20 months. And now the company has set the analytical department the task of analyzing this data in order to supplement and concretize the company's already existing idea of ​​​​the market for product X and the position of brand N in this market.
The company's analysts decided to analyze the state of the market in general and its recent changes from several points of view, as well as to conduct a deeper analysis of the positions of competitors of the existing brand N. Additionally, it was decided to investigate the positions of the elite brand S, also offered by the company on the market unpopular with the mass buyer in terms of the possible refusal to work with elite brands of goods and the concentration of the company's efforts only on mass brands.
The next step after setting the problem is to determine the parameters in which the analysis result will be presented. Sales characteristics presented in the Retail Audit report can be selected as parameters. Along with them, new parameters can be introduced, obtained on the basis of criteria independently formulated by the analyst. The parameters can also be combined with each other, which makes it possible to display information from a variety of angles.
Let us turn to the data on the monthly sales of brand N in the sales of product X
In the figure, the sales growth of brand N was 14%, while the market growth was 24%, the share of brand N in total sales decreased by 1% (from 10.5% to 9.5%).
Before continuing to analyze the data and try to find possible reasons for the decline in market share, analysts decided to introduce their own analysis parameter - the price level.
Based on this parameter, four price segments of product X were identified: low-price, mid-price, Premium and SuperPremium. In this case, the following segment boundaries were chosen:

• low-price segment - the price of goods X in standard packaging is less than 60 rubles per unit of goods;
• mid-price segment - the price of goods X in standard packaging is less than 120 rubles per unit of goods;
• Premium segment – ​​the price of goods X in standard packaging is less than 210 rubles per unit of goods;
• SuperPremium segment – ​​the price of product X in standard packaging is more than or equal to 210 rubles per unit of product.

As a result, analysts got an idea of ​​the distribution of the market by price segments and the dynamics of this distribution (see Figure 2).
It can be seen that over the period under consideration, the consumption of product X not only increased, but the pattern of consumption also changed. The buyer is less and less focused on cheap brands, whose share in the total retail sales decreased by 12%, he prefers the mainstream segment. In addition, retail sales of fairly expensive brands (Premium segment) have doubled during this time, although their share in total sales is still small.
The N brand is in the middle price segment.
The company intended to position a new brand in the same segment, at the same time the company decided to consider the possibility of positioning the N brand in a more expensive version in the Premium segment.
Figure 3 shows a combination of the parameters "price segment" and "trademark" of product X in accordance with the belonging of each brand to a certain price segment.
The result demonstrated the exit from the market of cheap brands of product X and a likely trend towards saturation of the market with brands in the mid-price segment, more or less constant growth in the number of brands in the Premium segment and stagnation of the market in terms of the number of brands in the SuperPremium segment.
More than 100% growth in the number of brands in the mid-price segment demonstrates a serious increase in competition, which was one of the reasons for the previously identified weakening of the position of the N brand.
The next step of the work was the consideration of the market from the point of view of the distribution of retail sales by the volume of packaging of goods X (Fig. 4)
The result showed a gradual increase in the popularity of buying product X in a package that is larger than the standard size. The most obvious explanation for the phenomenon is the desire of the buyer to save money, because a large package is cheaper per unit of production. But taking into account the growth in the volume of consumption of product X in general and the growth in incomes of the population, as well as the decrease in the share of consumption of cheap brands of product X, we can conclude that the trend under consideration is more likely due to changes in the socio-cultural context of consumption of product X. These changes can be expressed as that, when making a purchase of product X, the buyer focuses not on one person (himself), but on a group of people, as well as in the growing practice of forming a permanent home assortment of product X.
The management of the company made the following decision regarding the new brand of product X: to offer the market new brand not only in standard packaging, but also in larger packages, as well as to conduct an additional detailed study of consumer preferences in order to use as accurate information as possible about the profile of today's consumer of product X, the reasons and conditions for making a purchase when positioning and developing a marketing mix product X and the choice of a specific brand and package size.

Analysis of the positions of competitive market participants

In this example, the number of brands for product X is 200 in January 2002 and 345 in September 2003.
The company's analysts, along with the analysis of the market as a whole, began to study the positions of competitors of the brand N - brands of the same price segment, occupying the closest positions in terms of retail sales. Analysts examined the positions of brand N and its competitors in terms of sales volume, numerical distribution and the average price of product X in a standard package.
Figure 5 shows that brands B and F are experiencing rapid growth in sales volume and numerical distribution. Moreover, the sales volume of brand B grows faster than the sales of brand F and exceeds the latter with a lower level of numerical distribution. Both brands belong to manufacturers who have long been known to the market and have proven themselves on the positive side in the eyes of the consumer. A price comparison shows a significant price difference between the two brands, which is most likely the reason Brand B is more successful in the market. A clear trend towards a narrower price range across all three brands signals that price may not be used as a competitive differentiator. for brand N from brand F, representing a product of similar quality, but more expensive, and from brand B, the initial cheapness of which could cause doubts among consumers as a product.
The main conclusion of the analysts sounded like this: when introducing a new brand of product X to the market at the same or almost the same price as brand N, the company will not be able to appeal to the price as competitive advantage, and the set of marketing activities developed to position the new brand should be focused on other benefits of the new brand in the eyes of the consumer.
Analysts also considered the positions of the elite brand S (the brand belongs to the SuperPremium segment). The volume of sales of product X under the high-end brand is small, and the transition from the high-end direction in favor of the mass direction was likely for the company.
A comparison was made between the positions of the brand S and the competing brand Q, which is one of the leaders among the elite brands of product X, and also serves as a guideline in the development and launch of the company's brand S (Figures 6 and 7)
The conclusion was the following: since the S brand demonstrates positive sales trends, it is not necessary to abandon it, especially since the company's image only benefits from the presence of an elite brand in the assortment portfolio. Therefore, if economic feasibility allows to preserve and develop this brand, efforts should be made to increase its numerical distribution while maintaining the achieved price level.
Thus, Retail Audit helped to draw a number of important conclusions and concretize the idea of ​​the market for a more accurate setting of tasks for future research.
In conclusion, we note that despite the size and bulkiness of the reports, Retail Audit data does not deserve to serve as a momentary reference, and then be forgotten on the top shelf somewhere in the analytical department. This is a material that you can and should work with.

Reference

Retail Audit is a periodic collection of information about the statistics of sales of a certain product in retail outlets with the subsequent generation of a report.
The report fields contain the following product sales data: manufacturer, brand, sales volume, average price, numerical distribution, distribution channel, etc.
The Retail Audit report in most cases is a spreadsheet, where the number of rows corresponds to the variety of types of goods in retail, and the column headings are the characteristics mentioned above. Sometimes, additionally, in such a report, the results of the primary data analysis can be presented, for example, the distribution of the total sales volume of a product by type of outlets.