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GfK Retail and Techology Research and Reporting

Retail Services

Our international Retail Services team works in close cooperation with retailers worldwide. Sales data provided by these retailers forms the basis of the GfK Retail Panel market, which allows GfK to provide unique insights into both global and local retail and technology markets.

Reporting Frequencies

We deliver reports on a weekly, monthly and in some cases even daily basis, depending on individual customer requirements.

Reporting Benefits

• Supports in market analyses
• Supports in supply and negotiations
• Supports range reviews and promotion monitoring
• Provides knowledge for product development
• Shows the route to market by channel
• Informs about pricing trends
• Shows market positioning
• Measures effectiveness of assortment by model
• Measures effectiveness and efficiency of supply chain and distribution to consumer
• ...and more

The GfK Retail Panel

The GfK Retail Panel is a regular survey monitoring sales of (technical) consumer goods using a broad range of sales channels to supply trade and industry with highly accurate and up-to-date information.

Our market intelligence includes measured facts about sales, purchases, stocks, selling prices and distribution of individual products in defined retail outlets.

Elements of the GfK Retail Panel

GfK Retail Panel information consists of four main elements: Products, Segments, Periods and Facts.

Products (which products are sold?)

During data collection, each individual product or article sold by a retailer is first identified before being allocated to a so called product group.

All technical characteristics (features), are then assigned to this article. To ensure consistency on a worldwide basis, clear and internationally accepted product group definitions (e.g. digital portable video player) and features (e.g. storage type: built-in memory, hard disc drive, memory card only) are used.

This not only enables us to provide in-depth reports for national markets, but also international reports comparable country by country, or even an aggregation of countries (e.g. storage type of digital portable video players in Western Europe).

Single-article level data allows a ranking of the bestsellers of a product category or even a more specific segment (e.g. DPVP -> Built in Memory -> 1 GB) in so called Hit Lists.

Segments (where is a product sold?)

Knowing where a product is sold provides deeper insights into the specificities of parts of the market and provides, for example, the possibility to benchmark either a manufacturers' performance within a channel, or allows a retailer to benchmark itself against the performance of competing distribution segments.

To do this GfK Retail and Technology classifies each retailer – in analogy to articles, features and product groups – to a distribution channel (e.g. Technical Superstores, Mail Order House) with a clear definition which is used on a global scale.

Periods (when is a product sold?)

Retail Panel research is an ongoing and continuous process. This allows various views, such as sales today, year to date sales, today’s performance compared to previous years' performance or the developments over time. We track markets and products on a monthly, weekly and sometimes even daily basis.

Facts

A picture of the market can either be represented by measuring the sold units or sold value. Our tracking ranges from the sales units (value) of a single product (e.g. Oven); including the average selling price of products, product segments (e.g. Cooking) within a channel, to a whole market (e.g. Major Domestic Appliances) across all channels.