••• retailing research
First Insight expands merchandising platform
Incorporates more customer feedback
Warrendale, Pa., technology company First Insight Inc. has expanded its merchandising platform to include: capabilities that allow retailers and brands to create assortment plans for new products by incorporating real-time customer feedback; a new mobile app; integration with third-party panels; global capabilities, with the company’s solution now operating in 30 countries; visual dashboards; and compliance with GDPR and SOC-2.
First Insight’s patent-pending InsightPlanning application enhances assortment decisions by combining real-time consumer data and historical data with analytics to deliver unit recommendations that allow merchants and planners to accurately weight buys. The resulting solution is one that is influenced by consumer preferences on items for upcoming seasons. Plans can be optimized for various metrics including units, margin or sales to meet financial targets, thereby reducing stock-outs and overstocks.
The platform also lets retailers and brands hear from those who may not be shopping their stores or Web site. Wholesalers can listen to the customers of each of their retail channels and global retailers can gain insight from consumers in each of their targeted countries. This is made possible by First Insight’s integration with third-party panels, enabling access to panel respondents directly from within the system. This capability is designed to accelerate the speed of testing and simplify the process while reducing the overall cost of panel respondents.
••• qualitative research
QualBoard 4.0 debuts
Expanded group discussion capabilities
Nashville, Tenn., company 20|20 Research has added expanded capabilities for group discussions, long-term communities and more within its QualBoard version 4.0. The group discussions are designed with a streamlined interface and are more dynamic, with options for more question types and enhanced logic and skip patterns, including those based on key words in open-ended text. Discussions can also be managed on any device without the need to download a mobile app. The system also features real-time e-mail that allows participants to respond to probes and follow-ups via the e-mail message without logging into the system, as well as real-time video chats that allow further exploration with select respondents. And the platform’s analytics engine lets researchers use concept, keyword and sentiment extraction, as well as image analysis, to save time and assist with reporting.
••• data analysis
New release of WinCross
WinQuery also updated
Scottsdale, Ariz., researcher The Analytical Group has released WinCross v19, its statistical crosstabulation and data analysis software. WinCross 19 includes NPS statistical testing, calculation of outliers, advanced sample balancing and quicker processing time. The company has also released WinQuery and QueryWeb v19. WinQuery is a phone and tablet interviewing platform and QueryWeb provides Internet-based surveying capabilities. WinQuery 19 includes new digital survey recording in MP3 format, caller ID display control, a sample tool to automatically remove duplicate phone numbers and a combine data option to include only the last dialing based on a key field.
••• trend research
Applied consumer trends model now available
UP for the U.K.
U.K. consumer insight agency Join the Dots has launched UP Trends, an applied consumer trends model aimed at U.K. businesses. The 14 trends are underpinned by positive psychology and rooted in consumer needs that tap into universal human drivers that provide happiness and well-being. Each trend has been identified and quantified through a combination of the company’s online communities and a representative survey of 2,000 people, which measured how developed each trend was amongst the sample set of target consumers. UP Trends will allow the company to apply trends at a local, human and actionable level.
•••Briefly
Research and analytics company M Science has launched auto retail data on its M Data Viz platform. The offering leverages vehicle registration data to provide customizable analyses into the new, used and late-model used vehicle market. Clients can filter the nine dashboards to obtain granular data like the vehicle make, financier, financing type and fleet mix.
Market researcher Paul Hague has launched The Business Models Handbook, a book that features 50 of the most popular strategy models such as SWOT, Porter’s five forces, customer value propositions, customer journey mapping, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the 4Ps.
Flemington, N.J., company HCD Research has launched HCD Brand Harmony, a tool that integrates the brand, marketing and product experience to create cohesive consumer experiences. The tool uses a combination of psychological, neuroscience and traditional research methods to help marketing and product development teams ensure that their “product and promise” are consistent.
U.K. consumer insight agency Join the Dots has launched Insight Ecosystem, which the company says is intended to pre-empt the transformation of online communities. It was designed and developed by the company’s innovation team and uses a range of research approaches including question tools, social intelligence capabilities and ethnography apps.
Customer experience management company Market Force Information has expanded its offerings to include in-person and online focus groups, allowing clients to obtain qualitative insights about their customers and prospects. The company is deploying the services through a partnership with data collection firm Focus Pointe Global, giving Market Force clients access to 20 focus group facilities, a panel of more than 1.6 million consumers and trained moderators.
Online research platform Discuss.io, Seattle, has launched its Pulse program, which enables live video conversations directly between consumers and marketers to help build and strengthen consumer empathy.
Irvine, Calif., company MFour Mobile Research has introduced digital brand studies, providing ad effectiveness measurement for digital advertising. The studies obtain survey feedback from mobile consumers, allowing brands and agencies to assess lift, awareness and intent to buy using deterministic data.
London-based research firm MESH Experience has released its league table of retail banks in the U.K., based on its subscription retail bank study evaluating over 25 retail banks. The ranking shows how each brand performs on three metrics: share of experience; experience positivity; and brand consideration.
ROI Factory, a Northern California-based marketing analytics agency, has launched new analytics services. The company offers consulting and executional services including analytics audits, general analytics strategy and insight, reporting and more.
San Francisco-based customer success platform Salesforce has announced new additions across its Commerce Cloud platform. With the expanded platform, companies will be able to extend Einstein AI-powered commerce and image search; activate inventory in real-time across channels; and innovate commerce experiences.
Digital research agency MetrixLab has launched Immerse, a digital qualitative research solution that allows clients to engage consumers in the early stages of the creative development process. The solution features a live online group discussion hosted on an AI-powered digital platform. Powered by Remesh, the discussion platform’s AI technology allows users to analyze the feedback of large groups of respondents in real-time.
Chicago-based researcher IRI has introduced Campaign Conversion Feed, a solution that links demand-side platforms with IRI’s purchase-based audience data assets to allow CPG manufacturers and retailers to optimize their programmatic advertising campaigns while they are in-flight.
London-based researcher Kantar has announced Kantar Marketplace, an on-demand research and insights store. Kantar Marketplace will combine validated sample reach to 80 million consumers worldwide with self-serve custom surveys, insights solutions and consulting.
Stamford, Conn., technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group has launched ISG InformX, a data-as-a-service solution that leverages a validated IT data repository to provide intelligence on how an enterprise is performing against its peers.
Civicom Marketing Research Services, Greenwich, Conn., has launched a streamlined interface for requesting human transcriptions for Glide Central, its qualitative content curation and management solution.
Auckland, New Zealand, research solutions firm Infotools and research agency MDI Global have released a paper covering a new model for mobile-first consumer data collection and processing. The case study covers how a suite of MDI Global mobile apps and Web-based interfaces provided a platform for collecting data for an Australian dairy company. Infotools Harmoni was used to manage the data sets and provide insights.