New Features and Additional Data from Circle K Strengthen Service and Deliver New Insights
CHICAGO, July 29, 2008 – IRI announced today that leading U.S. consumer product giants General Mills, Mars Snackfood, BIC, Pabst, and Welch’s have all purchased the IRI AllScan™ Convenience Store Tracking Service just 12 months after its initial launch. In addition, IRI also announced that it has enhanced the AllScan service with new data from the nation’s leading convenience stores and new features that will deliver reliable and actionable insights to retailers and sales and marketing executives at the local market level.
The IRI AllScan Convenience Store Tracking service is the first 100 percent scan-based, point-of-sale (POS) data tracking solution for the convenience channel. The recently-launched service supplies comprehensive and highly-accurate price, promotion, and distribution information and consumer insights across the entire convenience store channel.
New Customers Join the Rush to Obtain IRI AllScan Data
IRI’s new AllScan customers join other industry-leading manufacturers, such as Just Born, Perfetti Van Melle, Dairy Management Inc., Candy Alliance, and Bimbo Bakeries, that utilize the AllScan service to obtain improved information quality and greater accuracy at the national, regional and local market levels.
“For the first time with IRI AllScan, we gain access to the best, most timely POS data, which is essential to providing the most accurate insights, so that we can confidently analyze sales and brand performance across various markets,” said Abbott Wolfe, Chief Sales Officer, Pabst Brewing Company. “Receiving this data at a very granular level is the key to broadening our perspective on every sale and to optimizing our price and promotion mix.”
Census Data Now Available for Circle K; New AllScan Features Add to Service’s Comprehensiveness
Manufacturers and retailers that benefit from AllScan’s delivery of the most accurate POS-based data available today now also enjoy additional benefits. IRI announced that it is the first to release two full years of census-level data for Circle K, part of the Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. group, the second-largest independent convenience store chain in the United States (whether integrated or not with a petroleum company) in terms of number of stores. Albertson’s Express and SUPERVALU Express are also now available as census-level accounts. These rich new data offerings will enable manufacturers and retailers to develop better insights as they assess their businesses to improve category management effectiveness and retail execution.
Additionally, IRI is continuing to build its industry-leading store sample sizes by adding new chain stores, including Mapco, Murphy Oil, Landmark Industries and Tri-Star Energy, as well as independent stores, installing state-of-the art new scanning technology. As a result, AllScan now utilizes 11,000 POS scan-based stores to project sales for the entire National Association of Convenience Stores’ defined channel, which surpasses any other offering in the marketplace.
IRI has also added enhancements to the host of national and local market analytic insights AllScan currently provides. New measures for tracking base sales under various channel-specific causal conditions to enable manufacturers and retailers to improve their promotion analysis and achieve greater success at driving convenience channel sales.
“Less than a year ago, we introduced AllScan as a more effective alternative to conducting volumetric audits to identify purchasing patterns,” said IRI Market Information Group President Mark Parise. “We’ve made great progress in this short amount of time with new data and new features to provide IRI customers with the most accurate and actionable insights to act confidently and win at the shelf.”
About the IRI AllScan Service
Leveraging data from more than 11,000 sample stores, the service provides markedly improved information quality over audit-based services. IRI AllScan’s weekly data reporting for convenience outlets across all available categories helps manufacturers and retailers refine their approach to the convenience retailing market.
About IRI
IRI is the world’s leading provider of consumer, shopper, and retail market intelligence and insights supporting 95 percent of the FORTUNE Global 500 consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail and healthcare companies. Only IRI offers the unique combination of integrated market information, automated and predictive analytics, innovative enabling technologies, and domain expertise. With IRI, leading retailers and manufacturers are able to quickly discover breakthrough insights driving smarter decisions and actions across the enterprise for breakthrough results. Companies around the world depend on IRI for improved productivity, stronger brands, and dramatic revenue growth. For more information, visit http://us.infores.com/.
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IRI CONTACTS:
John McIndoe
E-mail: john.mcindoe@infores.com
Phone: (312) 474-3862
Fax: (312) 474-2512
Shelley Hughes
E-mail: shelley.hughes@infores.com
Phone: (312) 474-3675
Fax: (312) 474-2512