Shopper Insight

Know your category & your shoppers

Why is shopper insight important?

More than ever, Retail Buyers expect suppliers to arrive at meetings with hard evidence to back up any request for new listings.

Few proposals are compelling enough without the data and insight to convince the Buyer that it’s a risk worth taking.

Market data is essential, but it’s only half the story.

Market Data (especially EPOS) tells you WHAT is happening - how you are performing in terms of volume, value and identifying where there are opportunities to grow distribution. 

With PANEL data we can analyse WHAT IS DRIVING this performance - such as shoppers switching away from your brand, decreased purchase frequency and quantifying incremental growth.

What market data can’t do is explain WHY this is happening. We need bespoke shopper insight to provide this.

For example, why do shoppers buy you? Why are shoppers switching away from your brand or products, or buying you less often? How do shoppers perceive your brand or products, and how does this compare to your competitors?

And who even is your core shopper?

Without this knowledge of your shopper base, any action you take may be largely guess work. How can you invest in marketing or NPD if you don’t know who the category shopper is and why they don’t buy you?

“Informed decisions are super important to us. Last week, an account manager who brought in a product I had never heard of - they thought it would be great but couldn’t tell me why. Suppliers need to bring evidence and not just their own opinion.”

Tesco buyer, 2023

Insight Options

Core Insight

  • 15 question online survey

  • 500 Nat Rep sample of Category shoppers

Current category snapshot

  • Category Brand performance funnel

  • Category shopper profiles

    • Age & Income / Brand portfolio

  • Buying motivations & attitudes

  • Barriers and tensions

  • Simple brand or product tests

Brand Deep Dive

Extending the sample to 1,000 respondents allows us to cut and cross-reference the data more, while maintaining robust “sub-groups”, enabling deeper analysis of brands, retailers and shopper segments

Core Insight PLUS Additional outcomes

  • A deep dive into your brand and products

    • Brand Perception

    • Life stage segmentation

  • Tesco’s new shopper segmentation - looking at the category and your own shoppers

Smaller Brands <£5m

Emerging / Regional / Challenger…however you view your business, if you want to achieve more UK listings, we have a strong track record of supporting smaller brands

Click here to find out more…

Premium Insight

For years we have supported NPD, EPD and Rebrand projects with robust consumer testing and feedback. Don’t rely on gut-feel and assumptions!

With 1,000 category respondents, you will get a Brand Deep Dive plus…

An in-depth section on either:

  • NPD concept testing

  • EPD concept testing

  • Re-branding

Tesco

From Tesco’s new segmentation to Dunhumbby data, we have years of helping our clients get UK listings

Click here to find out more…

All projects include:

  • Team workshops & scoping

  • 90 min presentation online

  • 20-30 chart report

  • Raw data if requested

Key Insights

Category behaviour & attitudes
  • Why do shoppers buy your category?
  • What are their attitudes and perceptions?
  • What impact has the Cost of Living had on their behaviour?
Brand insight
  • Why do shoppers choose your brand?
  • What other brands do they buy?
  • What are some of the barriers to buying you?
  • How aware are shoppers of your brand?
Shopper profiling
Identifying who your shopper is, and who doesn't buy you with a detailed demographic breakdown: from age and income, to gender and household makeup.
Category & Brand Tracking
  • Tracking key metrics including:
  • Brand Awareness
  • Purchase intent
  • Perceptions
  • Associations
  • Shopper profiles
  • For you and your key rivals
AB Testing & Advertising recall
  • If you’re about to launch a new range and your team is undecided on which route to take, one of the best ways to cut through the debate is to test it with those who matter most…your category shoppers.
  • This can include new pack designs and new ideas, as well as recall from category and brand shoppers for above-the-line advertising.
Bespoke to the questions you want to answer
Whether you have a handful of questions you want to gather insight on, or you want a deeper dive into your existing (or a new) category. We can help you with either. We’ll also help you craft the right questions to gather the best (unbiased) insight.

NPD

Mrs Elswood Survey

Over 10 years TRKR have developed a robust yet detailed process to support NPD and Re-Branding projects, based on the feedback and behaviour of real category shoppers.

Insight-Driven Innovation (IDI) is a Lean Agile-based innovation process for food & drink manufacturers, combining consumer insight with shopper testing

  • Using market data and shopper insights to develop new ideas, through a series of step-by-step workshop tools

  • For suppliers who want to strengthen their existing proposition, or New Product Development

  • Testing early-stage concepts with 1,000 real shoppers in the category. True proposition concepts with key features aimed at the true unfulfilled needs of consumers

  • Direct feedback on concepts, cross-referenced with shopper behaviour, motivations and attitudes, to create a profile of shoppers most (and least) likely to buy your products

  • Actionable insights to fine-tune your concepts, and evidence to show to Retail Buyers

Case Studies…

Hilltop Honey

Identifying incremental sales opportunities

Gü Desserts

Expanding into frozen category with NPD

Mrs Elswood Survey

Taylors Snacks

Testing new branding: same great crisps, different packet

Peperami

Testing NPD Opportunities in Adjacent Meat Categories