Gateway Research, specialists in behavioural research with eye tracking and biometric data, has run what it claims is the world’s largest single-store eye-tracking study, involving more than 300 in-store shopper sessions.
The ‘Shopper Compass’ project, run in partnership with Nestlé, has produced shopper behaviour data with details on more than four million fixations, 700,000 navigation data points and 10,000 purchases.
Gateway Research says that what makes this initiative different is that it was run with real shoppers – not people recruited from a panel – conducting their actual shop at their local store, and resulting in authentic data, with their entire shopper journey tracked.
Dr Peter Brawn, founder of Gateway Research and with more than 20 years’ experience in visual science research, says this study helps decipher the “black box” of shopper behaviour.
“It helps marketers understand how shoppers navigate supermarkets and what products and promotional devices are actually noticed,” he said.
“The study found that nearly half of the individual products purchased in the study were not locked in at brand level prior to the shopping session. So marketers armed with information from this research can potentially positively impact millions of dollars’ worth of sales.”
The FMCG industry is continuing to expand its investment in eye tracking as it realises that it’s all about standout in such a cluttered space. Gateway says it uses proprietary techniques and analysis to create detailed conversion funnels. The results allow for robust benchmarks to be developed at category and product level.
Nestlé Shopper Insights Manager Stephen Norcross says the Shopper Compass study is an important new tool for gaining fresh insights on shopper behaviour for the FMCG industry.
“The project was able to identify positive and negative components of the customer experience and conversion for both categories and individual brands,” he said.
