Objective:
The client wanted to ascertain how the Market Operating Price (MOP) varied across its retail network vis-à-vis competition, as price violation could adversely impact customer’s trust factor. To understand the market behavior, Channelplay conducted mystery audits and gauged variation in discounts on 25 SKUs across client’s brand and competition brands in two product categories.
Approach:
The key activities in project execution involved:
- Questionnaire designing to evaluate all the desired parameters
- Mystery shopper profiling and sourcing as per defined criteria
- Mystery shopper training on the audit process and flow of activities
- Visit planning as per the dates and time frames provided by the client
- Visit validation and report validation with appropriate proofs
Some of the challenges that we faced were:
- Conducting evaluation of stores across all cities within a window of 25 days
- Finding qualified shoppers having knowledge of sanitaryware
- Training the shoppers on various SKUs across two product categories
- Getting quotations of 20+ SKUs from both product categories
Outcome:
- 1000+ audits were conducted across target cities in a span of 25 days to measure how the Market Operating Price (MOP) varied across client’s retail network vis-à-vis competition.
- In one category client's price variation was higher as compared to the competition while in the other category the client stood at par with its peers in terms of price variation.
- A detailed report highlighting key insights was shared with the client that provided various cuts of price variation information like hub level, zone level, city level, store level and SKU wise.