Five Rules for Virtual Shopping Research

Retailers - and their manufacturing partners - face many challenges.  What is the right assortment at the shelf? How much space should be allocated to store brands? How should the category be arranged? What promotions are most effective? 

There are many ways to gain information to answer these questions. There are the more traditional approaches such as analyzing past sales data, conducting shopper surveys, or participating in shop-alongs. There are newer tools such as mining frequent shopper data or conducting biometric studies.  While they all offer valuable insights, none of them is definitive. Looking at past sales or frequent shopper data tells you what worked in the past, but does not allow you to evaluate new and different programs.  Surveys tell you about attitudes, but not behavior. What's needed is a tool to measure behavior in the present to better predict what will happen in the future.

Virtual shopping research is just the tool. It is essentially the same as doing an in-store test, without the time, expense and hassle...

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VideoMining Launches Center Store MegaStudy

To Develop Metrics for 'Share of Shopper' 

To develop metrics for what it calls "Share of Shopper," VideoMining Corporation has launched a year-long shopper behavior project called the Center Store MegaStudy.

The project aims to capture 10 million shopping trips. Ultimately, the study will include four or five leading grocery retailers and eight to ten banners, across 15 geographically dispersed U.S. markets.

VideoMining's technology collects the data via a network of cameras throughout the store, producing a feet-on-the floor tracking of each shopper. The network also captures every "Do I buy or don't I buy?" moment, measures them in seconds, and then relates them to sales and conversion...

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