Hear what the buyer thinks before the plan is committed.
Your consumer research explains the shopper. It cannot tell you how the retailer will receive the plan built on it. A buyer interview program supplies that second half of the picture while the decision is still open.
| What consumer research tells you | What the buyer can tell you |
|---|---|
| How shoppers choose within the category and which needs your product serves. | How the retailer defines the category, the role it plays in the store and what the buyer is measured on. |
| How a concept scores in a survey or performs in a test market. | Whether the buyer wants another item in the set at all, and what a new entrant would have to bring to earn space. |
| Which type of consumer buys the product and why. | Which type of shopper the retailer believes your product brings into the aisle, and whether that shopper is one the retailer is trying to win. |
| What shoppers say about price, promotion and packaging. | The reasoning behind shelving, space, assortment, promotion, pricing and private label at that retailer, and where it is about to change. |
What a buyer interview program covers
Edgewood interviews senior buyers, directors and category managers in Mass, Food, Drug, Club, Dollar and Online retail. Inside Edgewood the service is called Trade Probes. Every conversation works through the same ground, so positions can be compared retailer by retailer.
- Overall attitude toward the category and its place in the store.
- Category and segment roles, and the strategy the retailer has set for each.
- The other categories the buyer manages, and what each is expected to deliver in time, margin and sales.
- The competitive set as the buyer sees it, attitudes toward each player and where the gaps are.
- The type of consumer the product attracts, from the retailer's point of view.
- Merchandising strategy and its rationale: shelving, space, assortment, promotion, pricing and private label.
- Keys to success in the category and the barriers a new entrant faces.
- Future strategies, and what the buyer expects from new products.
When teams ask for it
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Before a category entry
A new category looks attractive on consumer data. The buyer already knows whether the shelf has room, which segment is underserved and what an entrant would need to bring. Learning that before the business case is signed is far cheaper than learning it at the line review.
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Before a launch
The concept scores well and the sell-in deck is drafted. The interview tells you how the buyer will read the item against the lines already on shelf, which of your claims will land and what will be asked in return for space.
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Before a shelf or merchandising initiative
A planogram idea or aisle change is expensive to propose and more expensive to withdraw. If the buyer has tried it before, or does not want it, you find out first and keep your credibility for the proposal the buyer will support.
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When the market moves
A recall, a competitor leaving the shelf, a shift between channels. Buyers form a view quickly. A short, pointed round of interviews captures that view while your own response is still being decided.
How findings come back
The reportThe full record of what buyers said, organized by topic and by channel, with each retailer's position set against the others. Where buyers agree you see it at once. Where they differ you see why.
ImplicationsWhat the pattern of answers means for your category strategy, the plan in front of you and your standing with each retailer. Where the buyer's view confirms your consumer research, and where it contradicts it.
Recommended actionsWhat to change, what to keep and what to take back to the buyer. Written to be carried into the planning meeting and the line review, and specific enough to act on without another round of analysis.
The shopper decision research behind our assortment and portfolio tools
Buyer interviews sit within Edgewood's Insight services alongside Shopper Decision Hierarchy research, a study that builds a decision tree for a category from shoppers' stated purchase and consideration sets, gathered away from the influence of shelf layout, placement and availability. It yields segmentation within the category, the substitutability and incrementality of products, the switch rate between products and product types, and the walk rate of shoppers who leave the store when their item is missing. That research drives the switching model inside AssortmentEdge®, our assortment optimization service run retailer by retailer against the retailer's planogram, and RevenueEdge™, which simulates a whole category market so that net revenue management teams can tie launch and discontinuation decisions to margin. In each case Edgewood's own team runs the analysis and stays with the client through implementation.
Bring the retailer's view into the plan.
Tell us the category, the channels that matter and the decision you are about to make. We will describe how a buyer interview program would be scoped for it.