• What is a Retail Panel?
• Elements of a Retail Panel
• Benefits of a Retail Panel

Elements of a GfK Retail Panel

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

Products (what is sold?)

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

All technical characteristics, so called 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?)

Besides knowing what is sold (i.e. the single article) the next question raised is where a product is sold.

This information gives 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 himself against the performance of competing distribution segments.

To do this, each retailer is classified – in analogy to articles, features and product groups – to a distribution channel (e.g. Technical Superstores) with a clear definition which is also globally valid.

Periods (when is a product sold?)

Retail Panel research is an ongoing and continuous process. Therefore the next variable besides "what?” and "where?” is to give an answer to "when?” the measurement takes place.

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.

Facts

A picture of the market can either be represented by measuring the sold units or the sold value. This ranges from the micro perspective of sales units (value) of a single product or segment within a channel, to the macro perspective of a whole sector across all channels.

The same applies to the average selling price. In addition to the three basic facts there are a number of derived facts, such as numeric distribution (share of selling outlets of an article/brand of a product group on to the number of outlets selling in this product group) or weighted distribution allow deeper insights.