Firma Badawcza Rynku Detalicznego

Firma Badawcza Rynku Detalicznego

SIS Międzynarodowe badania rynku i strategia

The retailers pulling ahead treat retail market research as a P&L instrument, not a reporting function. They connect shopper behavior, competitive moves, and assortment decisions inside a single evidence chain. That chain compounds. Each decision sharpens the next.

What follows is the operating logic used by the strongest merchandising, category, and DTC teams working across North America, Europe, and Asia. It draws on four decades of SIS International Research engagements with brands and retailers navigating market entry, private label pressure, and omnichannel economics.

Shopper Journey Analytics That Actually Predict Basket Behavior

Most journey maps describe what happened. The useful ones predict what a shopper will do at the next touchpoint given what they did at the last. That shift, from descriptive to predictive, is where shopper journey analytics starts paying for itself.

The mechanism is sequencing. When search, store visit, app open, and basket build are stitched to a single identity, category managers can see which touchpoint order produces the highest attach rate and which produces cart abandonment. Walmart, Target, and Ahold Delhaize have restructured category reviews around this sequencing logic, giving suppliers scorecards tied to path-to-purchase performance rather than shelf lift alone.

Retail Competitive Analysis Beyond Price Scraping

Price intelligence platforms have commoditized the easy layer of retail competitive analysis. The differentiated layer is competitor intent: which SKUs a rival is defending, which they are exiting, and which they are using as loss leaders to pull traffic into higher-margin adjacencies.

Reading intent requires human intelligence work. Mystery shopping programs, structured interviews with former category buyers, and supplier-side triangulation reveal the reasoning behind pricing moves. Aldi’s expansion sequencing in the US, Costco’s Kirkland Signature reformulations, and Amazon’s private label rationalization all became legible months earlier to teams running this kind of primary intelligence than to teams relying on scraped feeds.

The Private Label Competitive Threat, Sized Correctly

Private label share gains in grocery, personal care, and household categories are not uniform. They cluster where three conditions coincide: national brand price gaps exceed roughly 25 percent, blind-taste or blind-use parity is achievable, and retailer store brand equity carries a quality halo. Trader Joe’s, Loblaw’s President’s Choice, and Mercadona’s Hacendado hit all three.

The correct sizing exercise pairs blind product testing with willingness-to-switch modeling by shopper segment. That combination tells a brand manager which SKUs face structural erosion and which face temporary pressure. The response strategy differs. One requires reformulation or repositioning. The other requires disciplined promotional defense.

What Makes Up the Retail Market

Share of United States retail sales by sector, sized by how much each category rings up at the register

Source 1: United States Retail Sales by Category
Source 2: SIS International Retail Market Research
Shares are approximate and vary modestly by month and source.

Trade Spend Optimization and Promotional Lift Measurement

Trade spend optimization retail programs fail when lift is measured against the wrong baseline. Comparing promoted-week sales to a prior four-week average inflates lift because it ignores pantry loading, forward-buying, and category cannibalization. The result is trade dollars that look productive on a scorecard and destructive on a full-year P&L.

The stronger method uses matched-market control stores, incrementality testing, and post-promotion decay curves. PepsiCo, Unilever, and Nestlé have restructured joint business planning conversations with major retailers around incrementality metrics rather than gross lift. The conversation changes. Buyers stop demanding deeper discounts and start negotiating for cleaner promotional mechanics that build repeat purchase.

Lift Measurement ApproachWhat It CapturesDecision Quality
Prior-period baselineGross sales changeLow. Inflated by pantry loading.
Matched-market controlTrue incremental unitsHigh. Isolates promotion effect.
Incrementality with decay curveIncremental units plus post-event dragHighest. Reveals net annual impact.

Źródło: SIS International Research

Assortment Rationalization Without Cutting the Wrong SKUs

Assortment rationalization decisions go wrong when SKU velocity is read in isolation. A slow-moving SKU may anchor a shopper mission, hold shelf presence against a competitor, or serve a high-CLV segment. Cutting it drops basket size in ways that only surface two quarters later.

The stronger data model for retail assortment rationalization scores each SKU on four dimensions: unit velocity, basket contribution (what else the shopper buys when this SKU is present), segment dependency (which shopper cohorts rely on it), and competitive necessity (whether absence sends the shopper to a rival). Kroger, Tesco, and Wegmans use variants of this model to defend range depth in categories where competitors are trimming.

How Shoppers Use Retail Channels

Share of shoppers who use each channel, showing how retail has spread across stores, screens, and social feeds

Source 1: Omnichannel Retail Channel Usage Data
Source 2: SIS International Retail Market Research
Values are approximate composites drawn from several shopper surveys with differing samples.

DTC Channel Economics and the Wholesale Trade-Off

DTC channel economics have matured past the growth-at-all-costs phase. CAC payback, contribution margin after fulfillment, and repeat rate now govern channel investment decisions. The brands succeeding, including Warby Parker, Glossier in its wholesale pivot, and Allbirds in its rationalization, treat DTC as a data and margin channel rather than a volume channel.

The economic question is straightforward. DTC gives full-price margin and first-party data. Wholesale gives volume, shelf presence, and lower CAC. The winning brands quantify the value of first-party shopper data in dollar terms and let that number set the DTC investment ceiling. Below the ceiling, DTC compounds. Above it, wholesale wins.

Baner bloga AI

Market Entry Feasibility, Done as a Sequenced Investment

A retail market entry feasibility study for US expansion answers four questions in sequence: does demand exist at the intended price tier, which retail format captures it most efficiently, what is the realistic share ceiling given incumbent strength, and what unit economics survive US real estate and logistics costs. Each answer gates the next investment tranche.

The SIS Retail Evidence Chain

The frame we use with retail and brand clients links five decisions into one evidence chain: shopper demand signal, competitive position, assortment architecture, promotional mechanics, and channel mix. Weakness in any link degrades the others. Strength compounds.

Decision LayerPrimary Research MethodOutput
Shopper demandEthnography, shop-alongs, CLTsPredictive journey model
Competitive positionMystery shopping, expert interviewsCompetitor intent map
Assortment architectureBasket analytics, segment dependency scoringFour-dimension SKU model
Promotional mechanicsMatched-market incrementalityTrue lift and decay curves
Channel mixDTC economics modeling, wholesale ROIInvestment ceiling by channel

Źródło: SIS International Research

Retail market research works when each layer is instrumented with the right method and the outputs feed the next decision. The retailers and brands doing this consistently are the ones expanding margin in categories where competitors are defending it.

Przeprowadziliśmy kompleksowe badanie rynku odzieżowego i wyposażenia wnętrz w USA dla następujących branż:

  • Przemysł odzieżowy i tekstylny w USA
  • Tkaniny, tkaniny tkane szeroko i dzianiny
  • Rynek wyposażenia wnętrz
  • Odzież dla niemowląt i dzieci
  • Męska i chłopięca odzież szyta na miarę i sportowa
  • Odzież marki własnej
  • Stroje kąpielowe
  • Odzież sportowa i szyta na miarę

Próba klientów w branży detalicznej

  • 1-800-Kwiaty
  • Kosko
  • CVS
  • Dillardowie
  • Domy towarowe federacyjne
  • Gymboree
  • JC Penney
  • Sklepy Jo-Ann
  • Maj i spółka
  • Sklepy Michaels
  • Sears
  • Cel
  • Firmy TJX
  • ZabawkiRus
  • Sklepy Ross
  • Sok Jamba
  • The Children's Place
  • Przerwa
  • Ograniczony
  • Walmart
  • Walgreens

Często zadawane pytania

What is retail market research?

Retail market research is the structured collection of shopper, competitor, assortment, and channel evidence used to guide merchandising, pricing, and expansion decisions. It combines primary methods like ethnography, mystery shopping, and central location tests with secondary data on category performance.

How do you measure retail promotional lift accurately?

Use matched-market control stores and incrementality testing rather than prior-period baselines, then apply post-promotion decay curves to capture pantry loading and forward-buy effects. This isolates true incremental units and reveals net annual P&L impact.

How should brands assess the competitive threat from private label?

Size the threat where three conditions coincide: national brand price gap above roughly 25 percent, blind-use product parity, and strong retailer store brand equity. Pair blind product testing with willingness-to-switch modeling by shopper segment.

What belongs in a retail market entry feasibility study for the US?

Sequenced evidence on demand at the intended price tier, optimal retail format, realistic share ceiling against incumbents, and unit economics under US real estate and logistics costs. Each answer gates the next investment tranche.

How do you build a data model for retail assortment rationalization?

Score each SKU on unit velocity, basket contribution, segment dependency, and competitive necessity. Cutting purely on velocity drops basket size in ways that surface two quarters later.

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O firmie SIS International

SIS Międzynarodowy oferuje badania ilościowe, jakościowe i strategiczne. Dostarczamy dane, narzędzia, strategie, raporty i spostrzeżenia do podejmowania decyzji. Prowadzimy również wywiady, ankiety, grupy fokusowe i inne metody i podejścia do badań rynku. Skontaktuj się z nami dla Twojego kolejnego projektu badania rynku.

Zdjęcie autora

Ruth Stanat

Założycielka i CEO SIS International Research & Strategy. Posiada ponad 40-letnie doświadczenie w planowaniu strategicznym i globalnym wywiadzie rynkowym, jest zaufanym globalnym liderem w pomaganiu organizacjom w osiąganiu międzynarodowego sukcesu.

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