Trade Research

Trade research is one of the two basic marketing research directions (the second basic direction is customer research). The target for trade research is Points of Sales (PoS), which includes supermarkets, large and medium mixed and food stores, pavilions, specialized stores (for example, printed press kiosks, wine houses) and other places.

Since 2005 IPM Research has been applying only international standards of Trade Research, including a licensed methodology and software. Research quality in Georgia is similar to that of leading European and other research industries.

Trade research has two principal approaches:

Retail Audit

Store Check

Out of these two, Store Check is a simpler approach and gives only price and distribution indicators. Retail Audit is a more thorough study and provides all basic sales and distribution indicators for separate trade segments.

Trade research enables us to compare distribution indicators of same category products (for example, two different brands of beer), reveal distribution mistakes/failures, identify price changes on the market and market volumes, and even determine the algorithm of sale's increase dynamics in case of an improved distribution.

All companies producing fast moving goods (FMCG) use results of Retail Audit worldwide.

IPM Reseach experience shows that due to an incorrect/incomplete distribution, companies in Georgia run into 5-30% income loss.

Reporting

Reports for Trade Research will be provided in special software or printed format. The report will contain information by following sections:

Competitor brands

Competitor companies

Individual cities

Competitor points of sales

Range of time periods

Distribution parameters

Sales parameters

Price segments

Other analytical and descriptive information.