Breaking down purchase barriers to better negotiate with retailers

Background

A major consumer goods manufacturer contacted us with a unique challenge. A new range taken to supermarket was not hitting the desired run-rate, and the business needed hard evidence to take into retailer conversations.

However, this was made challenging due to a number of factors:

• Time: The retailer meeting was just over a week away
• Robustness: The business needed hard data, not supposition
• Shopper challenge: Penetration was less than 1%, meaning finding natural shoppers on market research (panels) for surveys, or via focus group recruiters (for qualitative exploration) would be difficult
• Cost: As an unforeseen project, budget was limited

Approach

As a specialist market research and insights boutique, we have a suite of both quantitative market research tools and qualitative research market tools to draw upon. In some cases, we can blend both together, and deploy new technologies.

Rather than spending considerable budget trying to find these buyers, we instead turned to a design that allowed us to uncover the necessary insights by triggering the right behaviour.

We used a specialist panel to recruit individuals to go out and buy the product firsthand. A total of 40 people took part.

This meant we designed a three-part task:

1. Initial recruitment and profiling to understand who they were, how often they interacted with the category, baseline occasions, and knowledge of brand.
2. Individuals then went out to store. During this visit, they were asked to take photos of what caught their attention, then to find the product and provide feedback. Individuals were then asked to purchase the product.
3. Finally, the product was prepared at home, and a post-consumption survey took place.

The outcome

This approach allowed us to gather a robust number of interviews to provide hard data.

The use of in-store photos and feedback, both qualitative and quantitative in nature, helped us understand the blockages at point of sale. This was particularly illuminating alongside competitor activity (and when overlaid with recent sales promotion data).

Finally, the preparation and consumption experience helped uncover (generally) excellent product delivery. This revealed the challenge was one of marketing: clarity of the unique selling proposition, rather than a product formulation issue.

Ultimately, the research helped empower our client to have an informed conversation with the retailer, embark in conversations regarding packaging design and claims, and better communicate the product’s USP.

If your brands operate within consumer goods and you’d like to understand how real world shopper behaviour can help drive better insights and business decisions, reach out to Vibrant Insights today.