Avoid Misleading Insights from Receipt Panel Data

SUMMARY

AVOID MISLEADING INSIGHTS FROM RECEIPT PANEL DATA

Brands need accurate insights on retail performance at the product level to truly understand consumer purchasing behavior and make better business decisions. And this includes accurate information on granular product attributes like product size, flavor, pack size and other details. But you can’t get this information — or accurate below-the-brand insights — from receipts alone. Or from panels that rely solely upon them.

This IRI brief explains the problems with attempting to get reliable below-the-brand insights from a stand-alone receipt panel and provides an alternative approach that will give you insights without compromise.

Highlights

• Across all U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers, fewer than 50% of all transaction receipts include UPC-level details. And many include product information that is much more limited.
• This can lead receipt panel-only providers to use a “cherry-pick” approach that overemphasizes receipts that contain more detailed product information, skewing results.
• A better approach is to use a receipt panel for insights down to the brand level combined with a scan panel that provides accurate UPC item-level data for below-the-brand insights.

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