Retail research, data, access
FREE published research in the UK
British Library and satellite libraries
The British Library has created physical hubs across the UK where you can access over 170 million items in their collection including FREE business reports. All you need is a free Reader Pass which you can get by visiting the Reader Registration in the British Library St Pancras, London, or British Library in Boston Spa, Yorkshire. This will save you ££ and give you access to market and commercial data which will influence your business plan and your decision making.
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Independent research providers
Euromonitor
A knowledge hub for customized research and reports on markets, economies and consumers. Again, if reports are published in the UK you can view them via the British Library network.
Mintel
Providers of research and market intelligence for global sectors and categories. Off-the-shelf reports can be viewed via the British Library for free or purchased from Mintel directly. You cannot take them out of the library, but you can save yourself ££ by spending an afternoon viewing their reports to see if the infor- mation is relevant to you.
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
This part of the government collects, analyses and disseminates statistics about the UK’s economy, society and population. Want to know how many mothers of children under the age of 18 in the UK? This is the place to look. Understanding the size of your consumer base is vital, so find out the real stats that matter on market size here.
Statista
Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform with an extensive collection of statistics, reports and insights on over 80,000 topics from 22,500 sources in 170 industries. If published in the UK... you’ve got the idea!
You Gov
YouGov is a global public opinion and data company. They publish all sorts of research that can help you better understand how consumers behave. It also has some hysterical stats on total nonsense, so there is some light relief when you look through the options here.
Quantitative and qualitative research
Cake Consulting
Getting dips of consumer information to help you build your business plan are essential, and there are several online solutions which include the likes of Zappi.io that can give you this data.
A word of warning: you really need to understand the ques- tions you’re asking of your consumers, shoppers or customers to get the most out of this process, and this can be achieved, to a greater or lesser extent, by having some professional help.
Throughout my time heading up Childs Farm, we leant on Sam Rogers to give us deep and insightful qualitative and quan- titative research to ensure that we were always on the right path to success, and not guiding ourselves with wishful thinking. It made manifold difference in our understanding of the direction our business should take and helped us target our marketing spend accurately to ensure we got the best ROI.
We also made sure we had an annual Brand Awareness Dip to benchmark our growth – so not only asking potential consumers if they had heard of us, but through what media they became aware of us. Cannot recommend her enough.
Grocery and other store data
Nielsen and Circana (formerly IRI)
Nielsen and Circana buy data from the big retailers, grocers and health and beauty retailers, amalgamate it, fiddle with it and then offer to sell it to brands to help answer specific questions about their plans. This is where you understand about your market share versus your competitors and can understand what your market opportu- nity is. Expensive, yes. Negotiable, always. As you grow you will use them more and more, so don’t be shy in pleading poverty.
Shopper data
Kantar Marketplace
Kantar Marketplace offers a full suite of market research tools designed to help you understand opportunity in your category. They seek data from shoppers to understand how and where they shop, which will provide you with independent and respected data to support your assumptions. They will do smaller projects designed to help SMEs with their research foundations, and again plead poverty at your early stages as you will be using their services a lot as you grow. Again, some data can be sifted online or through the British Library.
Consumer pen portraits
All retailers
Talk to the buyer at the retailers you are targeting to understand who their consumers are, and they should provide you with their own internal consumer pen portraits. Some also have them on their websites. These are vital to ensure you know their consumer and how your product is perfect for them.
Retailer pitching opportunities
Bread & Jam Festival
Bread and Jam Festival offer unique opportunities for FMCG challenger brands, and one of the strings to their bow is chances to pitch to retailers at events. This is GOLDEN. Look ’em up and get in touch.