7 Sources for Shopper Research

Know Thy Consumer. Isn't that the first commandment of marketing? It should be! If you're like me, you value consumer and shopper data and leverage insights from that data to help make your business decisions -- from determining what geographic markets to enter, which retailers to partner with, and how to effectively connect with certain types of shoppers, like health-conscious Millennial moms.

When it comes to national or international research, here are seven sources my clients and I look to:

Nielsen
IRI
SPINS
NMI
Hartman Group (specific to food & beverage industry)
Mintel
Euromonitor

I prefer to follow them on Twitter for bite-sized updates:

@Nielsen
@iriworldwide
@SPINSllc
@NMITweets
@HartmanGroup
@MintelNews (Definitely has the BEST research tweets!)
@Euromonitor

What sort of shopper data are you interested in? What consumer information helps you make better decisions for your business?

Given Green Purse PR's expertise in shop-along research, we often look to nationally representative quantitative research to compliment the work we do, which drills down specifically to our clients' exact shoppers' perceptions and behaviors.

If we know that a product's package label is a major influencer for driving purchases of healthy and natural products (74% of consumers say this via NMI - see graphic I tweeted from Natural Products Expo West), then naturally we'll craft some packaging specific questions during our shop-alongs to identify how shoppers perceive packaging of organic beef, for example.

I'm gearing up now for a new shop-along research project that starts in a few weeks. I'm already gathering a few recent pieces of research around this client's specific category and target consumer. That research will be instrumental in helping me plan out the most thought-provoking questions that will help garner the most relevant insights for my client.

Hungry for more?

Learn more about our approach to customized shopper research by downloading Green Purse PR's Guide to Shop-Along Research here.

Want to discuss how we can help you get to know your consumers better? Contact me at lisa greenpursepr com, or use our contact form here.

- Lisa Mabe-Konstantopoulos, Founder, Green Purse PR