Indiantelevision.com Team

(27 June 2007 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and the NPD Group, the provider of consumer and retailer information, announced an agreement whereby NPD will provide Wal-Mart and Sam's Club with consumer tracking data.

Under the agreement, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club will have access to NPD information on consumer purchasing across a broad spectrum of industries including automotive aftermarket, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion , foodservice, home, toys, and wireless handsets.

They will also receive NPD's consumption information on food and beverages. For the above listed categories, NPD will be the preferred provider of consumer panel data that Wal-Mart will use to manage its businesses.

Wal-Mart VP insights and customer strategy Robert Atencio said, "NPD information will give Wal-Mart an extensive cross-category view of what's happening across all segments of the marketplace and all consumer demographics. This is the kind of intelligence we need to continue to successfully grow our business by understanding what today's consumer is looking for and tailoring our business to deliver it."

The agreement will provide Wal-Mart and Sam's Club with information collected from NPD's panel of over 3.5 million consumers who report what they purchased, where, for what price, and more. NPD will produce reports customized for Wal-Mart, enabling the retailer and select vendors to view information for Wal-Mart and Sam's Club consumer segments, category hierarchies, and custom trading areas, states an official release.

"Wal-Mart has always placed a high value on using information for fact-based decision making," said Wal-Mart chief marketing officer and EVO Stephen Quinn. "We look forward to building on our track record here by working with NPD, leveraging the new tool with our vendors, and continuing to meet customer needs to grow our business."

NPD consumer information available to Wal-Mart will include core market measures such as market share, price points, consumer demographics, channel trends, and more. Wal-Mart will also be tapping NPD's custom research options to address other, specific information needs.