Onderzoeksbureau voor de detailhandelsmarkt

Highlighted Project Examples:

• Study of the market potential for placemats and novelty household items in the US. Study involved market size, projections, price points, channels of distribution and consumer attitudes towards these items.
• Competitor profile of a firm producing outdoor/sports apparel.
• Monthly competitive intelligence reports on the OTC retail market.  Study covered US and European retail outlets.
• Study which projected the market potential for home plants and related products.
• Market sizing, potential, distribution channels, pricing and advertising for mattresses in Mexico.
• Field research to locate competitive coffee maker products in Germany.
• Conducted a market analysis of the retail market for Japanese coffee makers.
• Conducted a global market study on doll houses
• New product tests for fragrances in France and in Germany.
• Evaluation of the retail wine and beer market in Europe.
• Evaluation of the potential for organic produce in the UK and in Germany at the supermarket level.
• Competitive tracking of the cosmetics market in department stores in Brazil and in China.  Study involved retail store checks/audits in Brazil.
• Competitor profiles of major retailers; market strategy, positioning, strategic alliances with manufacturers.
• Study on the buying practices of major retailers in the US.
• Conducted a qualitative [focus groups] study for the buying habits of consumers for retail drug stores in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and throughout the Pacific Rim. The study was followed by a quantitative assessment of the demand for retail drug store products in these Asian countries.
• Conducted in-depth telephone interviews in New York with individuals who are buyers of luxury fashion garments.
• Analysis of the Distribution Channels for US Retailers, Supply Chain, Dynamics in the Industry
• Company profiles of the top 10 US Retailers  – Strategic Overview – SWOT Analysis
• Successful Brand Management Techniques in the US Retail Industry
• Conducted mall intercepts in the Staten Island Mall to survey consumers’ attitudes toward the existing and potential eating establishments and retail stores.
• Conducted mall intercepts to determine consumer attitudes toward LCD display screens.
• Conducted retail mall intercepts for fragrance tests.
• Conducted focus groups to obtain behavioral, attitudinal, and shopping preference information.
• Conducted a segmentation study on digital still cameras.
• Conducted several market intelligence reports analyzing retail sectors across various countries.
• Conducted quantitative face to face interviews with purchasing managers or store managers in their workplace
• Conducted an Online Shoppers study

What a Resume of Experience in Retail Industry Research Reveals About Vendor Quality

VP-level buyers evaluating retail intelligence partners read résumés differently than procurement teams do. They look for pattern depth, category range, and decisions actually shaped. A strong resume of experience in retail industry research is not a client logo wall. It is evidence of repeat engagements across category management optimization, shopper journey analytics, and assortment rationalization, executed in markets where the buyer plans to compete.

This guide explains what separates a credible retail research track record from a generic one, and how Fortune 500 leaders use that evidence to select partners for category entry, private label competitive threat analysis, and trade spend optimization.

How Leading Buyers Read a Resume of Experience in Retail Industry Research

The first signal is engagement type, not company name. A vendor with twenty brand tracker engagements has shallow exposure. A vendor with engagements spanning shelf space allocation, promotional lift measurement, and DTC channel economics has structural fluency.

The second signal is category specificity. Apparel buying behavior does not transfer to grocery. Mass merchant assortment logic does not transfer to specialty. Buyers should expect named work in their exact category, not adjacent ones.

The third signal is decision linkage. Strong résumés cite the decision the research informed: a market entry, a private label launch, a planogram reset, a banner repositioning. Weak résumés cite deliverables.

According to SIS International Research, retail engagements that produced board-level decisions shared three traits: the brief named a specific commercial outcome, fieldwork covered both shoppers and trade buyers, and the final readout included a competitive response scenario. Engagements missing any of the three were used as reference material rather than action triggers.

Category Coverage Signals Real Retail Research Experience

Retail is not one industry. It is a stack of subverticals with different economics, buying cycles, and shopper psychologies. A credible track record demonstrates depth across the subset relevant to the buyer.

Source: SIS International Research

A retail research firm that lists ten engagements all in one subvertical is a specialist. One that lists engagements across three or four with named brands and named decisions is a generalist with depth. Both are useful. Conflating them costs money.

Methodology Range Distinguishes Strategic Partners from Field Houses

Field houses execute. Strategic partners design. The difference shows up in how a vendor describes prior work.

A field house résumé reads: 400 intercepts, 12 focus groups, n=1,200 online survey. A strategic partner résumé reads: shopper journey mapping across three banners, B2B expert interviews with category managers at the top five accounts, ethnographic observation in pantry and cart, validated against syndicated panel data. The first describes inputs. The second describes intelligence architecture.

For Fortune 500 retail decisions, methodology range matters because single-method studies miss commercial reality. A private label competitive threat assessment built only on shopper surveys ignores the buyer side. One built only on trade interviews ignores velocity at shelf. The credible track record blends both.

Geographic Footprint Determines Whether Findings Travel

Retail behavior is local. A category leader in São Paulo can fail in Mexico City. A format that scales in Tier 1 China cities behaves differently in Tier 3. Buyers expanding internationally should weight geographic specificity heavily when evaluating a resume of experience in retail industry research.

The relevant test: has the firm conducted primary fieldwork, with its own teams, in the markets the buyer is entering? Subcontracted fieldwork in unfamiliar markets carries translation risk, sample quality risk, and interpretation risk. In-house regional teams reduce all three.

SIS International’s market entry assessments for apparel and consumer brands entering the US, India, China, and Southeast Asia have repeatedly shown that competitive trend interpretation fails when fieldwork is delegated without local senior oversight. Findings get translated literally and mis-positioned commercially. Engagements led by regional senior researchers consistently produced sharper assortment and pricing recommendations.

What a Strong Retail Research Track Record Includes

Across hundreds of retail engagements, the track records that hold up under VP scrutiny share a common structure. They name the brand, the decision, the methodology, and the geography. They cover both shopper and trade. They include category management optimization work, not only awareness tracking. They show repeat engagements with the same client, which is the strongest signal that the work moved decisions.

Buyers should request three references at the VP-Marketing or SVP-Category level, not at the insights manager level. Senior references confirm whether research shaped commercial choices. Junior references confirm only that fieldwork was delivered on time.

The SIS Retail Research Track Record

SIS International Research has executed retail and consumer engagements across more than 135 countries over four decades. The work spans apparel market entry, grocery category management optimization, mass merchant assortment rationalization, DTC channel economics, and private label competitive threat assessment. Methodologies include focus groups, ethnographic research, B2B expert interviews with category buyers, central location tests, shopper journey mapping, and competitive intelligence audits.

Representative engagement types include US fashion market entry evaluations for European apparel groups, organized retail growth assessments in India and China, and shopper behavior studies for global CPG manufacturers. Each engagement linked primary research to a named commercial decision: launch, expand, reposition, or exit.

Evaluating Vendors Beyond the Résumé

The résumé is the entry ticket. The selection decision rests on three additional tests.

First, brief response quality. A vendor that reframes the brief with sharper hypotheses understands retail. One that restates the brief in different words does not.

Second, senior team continuity. Ask who will run the engagement and confirm those names appear on prior work in the same category. Bait-and-switch staffing is the most common cause of post-kickoff disappointment.

Third, analytic point of view. Strong retail research firms hold opinions about category trajectories, channel shifts, and competitive moves. They defend those opinions with evidence. A vendor without a point of view is a data vendor, not a research partner.

A resume of experience in retail industry research, read carefully, predicts engagement quality with high accuracy. Read carelessly, it predicts nothing.

Over SIS Internationaal

SIS Internationaal biedt kwantitatief, kwalitatief en strategisch onderzoek. Wij bieden data, tools, strategieën, rapporten en inzichten voor besluitvorming. Wij voeren ook interviews, enquêtes, focusgroepen en andere marktonderzoeksmethoden en -benaderingen uit. Neem contact met ons op voor uw volgende marktonderzoeksproject.