A new data service launching today looks set to provide retailers and suppliers with shopper insights that could help to better target in-store promotions.
The Snapshot system, from market research firm koji, is being made available to suppliers and retailers of all business sizes for examining shopper behavior based sources such as POS data or loyalty card records.
Functioning as a basket analytics product, the system looks at transactional grocery data drawn from the Data Republic ‘Open Data Marketplace’, including basket-share, customer demographics, and transactional behavior.
Koji cofounder Mike Cassidy told C&I Week that the insights made available by Snapshot can allow retailers to better target their in-store promotions to shopper behavior, providing data such as items commonly grouped in that same purchases, or time of day for certain kinds of purchases.
“We’re applying our knowledge of shoppers [to the data] to figure out what it is about those shopping behaviours that will be of interest to brand owners and retailers.”
“First of all, it will tell you a bit about which stores and which shopper audiences are open to promotions, and secondly it will give you an idea of the categories where those sorts of promotions could work. How people buy soft drink is very different to the way they buy bottled water.
“And thirdly, it will also give you quite tactful information about the time of day or time of week, about when shoppers are active and when you can target them.”
Mr Cassidy said the system is designed for both FMCG brand owners who want to know how their categories and brands are being purchases, as well as individual retailers and stores who want to know about how their shoppers are behaving.
“This is information that goes through the tills every day, and is connected across the country, so there’s valuable information contained within that about how shoppers are behaving in their stores,” he said.
“A lot of marketing courses will refer to case studies about how, if you position strawberries next to cream will people buy the two products together, and this is all about understanding what items are going into baskets, what is the basket composition, and what does that look like over time?
“A basket on a Monday might be very different to what the customer purchases at a different time.”
Data Republic commercial director Steve Millward said that Snapshot was the first FMCG data product to be conceived from its Open Data Marketplace.
“We’re pleased to provide the technology and secure access to data for an FMCG insights expert like koji to build and deploy a valuable data product for brand marketers,” he said.
“It’s what Data Republic is all about and it’s great to see us achieving what we’ve set out to do – empowering businesses to exchange data, uncover new insights and then deploy these insights to solve problems.”
According to Mr Cassidy, several large manufacturers have already come on board with the new system.