About/Methodology/Datacentre methodology

We've developed a single, universal methodology for calculating food and consumer goods retail data, supported by our programme of primary and secondary research. This makes Retail Analysis the most reliable and robust source available for data of this type.

Why choose Datacentre

Retail Analysis provides unrivalled depth of insight on the 100 most important global grocery markets, and all the significant grocery retailers within those markets. Our Datacentre universe covers over 400 retail groups and almost 1,000 operations.

Datacentre puts key figures and forecasts at your fingertips to help you build the strongest business plans. We have a fully interactive tool that makes it quick and easy to create custom data reports for the retailers, markets and channels you need. And our team of global retail analysts ensure the numbers are robust and reliable, giving you the confidence to put them at the heart of your planning and assessment.

  • Our primary research methodology is what sets Retail Analysis apart. Our retailer and supplier relationships enable us to get to know markets from the ground up, and we build our insights through our global research and travel programme
  • Our field research is backed-up by a comprehensive desk-based research programme. Insights are taken from a wide range of sources, including company reports, releases and filings; analyst briefings and research notes; regulatory bodies and global news services. We do this research so you don't have to
  • To provide numeric insight that enables comparisons to be made between all retailers and across all markets, IGD has developed a single, universal methodology for calculating the data across Retail Analysis, giving you a stable and consistent source of data for comparison and measurement

To see Datacentre in action please email [email protected] or call us on 44 (0)1923 851 956. Here are some details on common questions we are asked:

Forecasting

  • We understand how important reliable forecasts of the potential performance of retailers are to your business. We therefore provide future projections of sales, store numbers, space and market share for all retailers, in all their formats, in all their countries. 
  • We have developed a standardised forecasting methodology that we apply to our retailer universe. We estimate performance versus market and competitor-set, combining forecasts for store and space growth with like-for-like (comparable store performance) to provide retailer-by-retailer forecasts. Guidance and objectives for sales growth and portfolio development by retailers are also taken into account. 

Timings and Financial Years

  • The timings of financial years differ between many retailers, usually determined by their home market. French retailers, for example, often have a financial year reflecting the calendar year. Australian retailers usually run to the end of June whilst those from the UK often end in April.
  • For consistency, IGD records data against the calendar year that the majority of the retailers' financial year occurred in. For example, Walmart's Fiscal-year 2013 runs from 1st Feb 2012 to 31st Jan 2013 – so we'd record the sales against 2012 in our database.

Currencies

  • Where possible, financial performance data is entered in domestic currencies. When translation is required, currency exchange rates are derived from the Retail Analysis currency table – note, these rates may differ from those used by retailers, and lead to differences from published figures.
  • We use annual average bid price exchange rates based on the US dollar and triangulated to provide inverses. Our currencies are sourced through our partners at www.oanda.com a foreign exchange trading and currency information service provider, with one of the world's largest currency databases.

Retailer Relationships

As with reporting periods, companies operating grocery stores have many different organisational structures. To provide insightful analysis, IGD has adopted a standardised approach to manage this variation:

  • The business entity that 'goes to market', i.e. the 'sales generating unit' is termed the "retailer".
  • A retailer could be an entire company, e.g. UK grocer Morrisons, or it could be one part of a far larger organisation, e.g. Rossmann is part of AS Watson. We cover parent companies where they are involved in retailing (e.g. AS Watson is part of Hutchison Whampoa which does not feature in the Datacentre as all of its retail activities are contained in AS Watson). Such larger entities, or 'parent companies', are termed "Top Retailers" in our Datacentre Query Tool.
  • There are a variety of potential ownership methods, often either accountancy-based (e.g. consolidation) or structural (e.g. franchising) that determine where operators belong within a structure.
  • Regimentally utilising company ownership structures may be misleading when assessing the opportunity of individual retail accounts, and also creates inconsistency. IGD therefore assigns retailers to groups where the group has managerial control of the retailer. Some specifics:

    • Mergers and acquisitions – to again avoid duplication, we assign the acquired business to their acquirer for full years of trading, on an estimated annualised basis.
    • Franchised partners are retail companies in their own right that have entered into a franchise agreement with another retail group (e.g. Majid is a Franchise Partner of Carrefour and Dairy Farm in Hong-Kong is a Franchise Partner of Seven & I Holdings). Data can be viewed in either the franchisor or the franchisee. IGD’s Datacentre query tool enables you to remove the sales from franchise partners when viewing the franchisor through the ‘cog’ menu (e.g. you can view Carrefour with Majid or without). For franchisors, sales shown are net retail sales, rather that the revenue generated through wholesale sales to franchise partners
    • Franchise stores are usually managed directly by the franchisor and regroup many different independent owners (e.g. Carrefour convenience stores in France are mostly franchised to independent store owners). Data usually sits with the franchisor and sales shown are net retail sales rather that the revenue generated through wholesale sales to the franchise store owners.
    • Joint ventures – to avoid duplication, data is only assigned one partner

To learn more about how Retail Analysis and Datacentre can help your business please email [email protected] or call us on 44 (0)1923 851 956.