1. A.C. Nielsen Homescan

2. Continually providing information about their purchases
POS (scan) data tells you what sells in a retailer’s stores -- Homescan consumer panel data tells you who buys what in the stores and what they buy elsewhere
A group of households selected to be demographically and geographically representative
Continually providing information about their purchases
From all outlets using in-home scanners
Understanding your customers’ preferences allows you to tailor merchandising and operations to better meet customer needs

3. Female/male head of household
Homescan collects more than just demographic information allowing you to understand more about customer lifestyles
Female/male head of household
Age
Employment
Occupation
Education
Other household members
Relationship to panel member
Employed for pay
Household income
Race
Hispanic descent
Cable TV
Type of residence
Own/rent residence
Length of residence
Pet ownership (dog/cat and number owned)
Vehicle ownership (car/truck and number owned)
Appliance ownership

4. Homescan’s allows you to look at your business globally and locally
61,500 households
Geographically dispersed
Demographically balanced
Projected to U.S. Census at the national, regional, and market level
Estimates are updated monthly to reflect changes in the population
The robust sample allows the creation of custom geographies
23 local markets
Buffalo/Rochester
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Columbus
Denver
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami
Minneapolis
New York
Phoenix
Detroit
Sacramento
St. Louis
Seattle
Tampa
Dallas
Atlanta
Baltimore/Wash.
San Antonio
Philadelphia
San Francisco

5. 9 U.S. Census Divisions New England Mountain West North Central
East North
Central
Pacific
Mid-
Atlantic
South
Atlantic
East South
Central
West South
Central

6. Caveats of panel data
Collection and reporting takes place in the home so items bought and immediately consumed may be missed
Panelists do not scan purchases made for business use
Hard-to-recruit households are a challenge for all marketing research companies requiring special recruitment and projection practices
Extremely low / extremely high income households
Young, single males
Young female heads with young kids
Certain ethnic households

7. Information captured for each shopping trip
On each shopping trip (no matter who in the hhld is shopping):
Date purchased
Age and gender of primary and secondary shopper
Retailer and channel shopped
Frequent shopper card usage*
For each UPC...
Number of units purchased
Price paid (non ScanTrack stores only)
Deals used (mfr cpn, store cpn, store sale, other)
Source of coupon*
at home, at the register, elsewhere in the store
Total amount of shopping trip ($)
Method of payment*
* collected from a subset of panelists

8. Why use Homescan data?
Consumer behavior drives sales -- Homescan moves beyond demographics to measure behavior
Tells what actually happens when your customers are inside your stores and your competition’s
Shows customer’s shopping behavior in all outlets including channels like pet stores
Serves as a benchmark for success -- a healthy, active client base generates long-term success for a retailer
Consumer data is imperative to move from Category Management to Consumer Management
Homescan allows you to understand your customers, fine tune your operations to better respond to them and capture a larger share of wallet!

9. Exam Data 1
Select a Nielsen Homescan category—be sure that it can provide the sales of the leading brands for metropolitan markets.
Select four metropolitan markets, each from a different region. (i.e., Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, Miami)
Estimate the share of the category’s sales for each of the retailers found in that market for 2000 and 2004.
Create a single-page table permitting comparison of the competition in and across the four markets. The table should include overlapping retailers (single row), and (at least) the top retailers (8) in each market.

10. Channel Facts
Retailer Purchase Components: Provides sales ($) by retailer for a category.
Category Purchase Components: Provides total sales ($) in the category for the metro market.
Create a spreadsheet (set of spreadsheets) by copying Nielsen spreadsheet into another file.
Use sales ($) and % sales as your measures of competition/concentration.

11. Consumer Facts
Buyer Behavior: Provides the sales by brands for the U.S., Regions, and Metropolitan Markets (level of detail drops significantly from U.S. to Region).
Demographic Profile: Provides the household demographics by brands for U.S. (and Regions).
Become familiar with the organization and level of detail within your selected product category before making your final decision on a product category. Category should include store brands, or private label (CTL BRAND) in a market.