Syndicated Data for CPGs

Learn about:

• What syndicated data is
• How it is compiled and used
• The difference between brick-and-mortar data and e-commerce data 

How would you know how a product has performed in the consumer market? Syndicated data can provide companies with this insight. Besides providing details on a product’s performance, syndicated data comprises data on assessments, sales, and consumer buying behavior patterns.

Data syndication drives the automated process of communicating merchandise-related data to channels of sales and distribution. Regardless of whether you are a distributor, supplier, or retailer, if you want to step up the sales of your goods, leveraging syndicated data may be one of the most proven ways to take industry trends and apply them to your business

How it Is Compiled

Syndicated data is compiled by gathering point-of-sales (POS) data, panel data, and product data. These break down as follows:

• POS data: This refers to the retail measurement, which is data collected from stores using POS systems and e-commerce software.
• Panel data: This refers to consumer-level data. This can be collected from surveys or household items that track shopping habits.
• Product data: This refers to all the information about a product that can be read, measured, and structured into a usable format. This includes categorization, dimensions, and other information.

Syndicated Data in Retail

Retail analysts gather syndicated data in a number of ways to build actionable insights. The top retail data vendors are IRI, Nielsen, and SPINS (for natural or organic grocery suppliers). These vendors provide valuable insights into retailers, categories, and benchmarks against other companies.

Unfortunately, some retailers do not provide syndicated data to these vendors at all. IRI and Nielsen also tend to ignore data for grocery and home and garden categories as well.

Syndicated Data in E-Commerce

Your production, sales, and marketing departments must work together with a common goal of making your website a user-friendly, highly responsive, unobtrusive, and hassle-free place to visit.

Among the basic steps of selling your product online are keeping its price and related information updated. Data shows that consumers prefer to visit websites that have meaningful data, the latest information, and accurate knowledge when looking for a product that meets their needs. Consumers are quick to skip websites that do not display updated product details such as pricing, delivery, imaging, and availability.

If the website does not provide important insights then it is not serving any purpose for either the manufacturer or the client.

How Walmart Uses Syndicated Data 

Walmart has implemented a syndicated data synergy program, known as Walmart One Version of Truth (OVT). This program guides suppliers to spread out their presence and effect in a manner such that it adds value to Walmart’s strategic goals, which are:

• Grow Together: Application of OVT provides a single common vision of market prospects. One uniform database helps suppliers prevent situations of multiple upward trends showing different variations, depending on a variety of custom positions of the same product space. Growing your brand together with Walmart cashes in on opportunities by way of collaboration.
• Category Consistency: Application of OVT does away with almost 20% discrepancy between a category advisor’s custom hierarchy metrics and Walmart’s parameters of performance. This consistency is a time-saver and builds mutual trust. It also results in creating the best opportunities for growth for everyone.

Walmart has selected Nielsen for its source of POS data. This means Nielsen numbers are now the benchmark for implementing steps and analytics within Walmart. Nielsen is the single provider of the program and the sole firm that can provide manufacturers with the same POS data and analytics application.

Syndicated data, in addition to other sources such as customer loyalty data, retailer POS, and proprietary buyer surveys, assists Walmart in resolving commercial affairs. It also helps the retail giant in outlining sections and customer demand as well as determining market potential.

How Companies Can Use Syndicated Retail

Consumer packaged goods companies can use syndicated data to view how their products are doing at the store level, which in turn, helps them drive consumer shopping habits. Additionally, looking at store-level data allows companies to let their buyers know when stock needs to be replenished, why they should purchase a new SKU, or even the effects of product placement.

Syndicated data can be a valuable tool for determining your sales forecasts, monitoring your instocks, and performing other store-level analyses. The data is compiled by gathering POS data, panel data, and product data. Walmart leverages syndicated data from Nielsen to present its One Version of the Truth (OVT) program to add value to Walmart’s strategic goals.

SupplyPike has developed tools that utilize Walmart data to provide deep analyses into sales and forecast metrics. We have a dedicated machine learning team that creates actionable insights into your data. Check out our full suite of software solutions!