Competitor Detective Retail Price Trackers:

Methodology:

1. Weekly prices are collected from each retailer. All prices are in the public domain. They are collected at the Retailer defined hierarchy level. E.g. All products under their hierarchy “Kitchens” are collected regardless of their product type, in Kitchens depending on the competitor, this may include tiles, electrical and paint.

2. Any skus that have been collected previously but not collected in this weeks “hierarchy” run are then entered into a second search at a sku level – this collects any skus that have been de-linked from the category hierarchy.

3. Prices shown are those shown on the web site and do not included any % off discounts applied at the tills or transaction conclusion.

Rules for dealing with lines (skus) not collected in current week’s survey:

4. When a product previously captured is not collected in the current survey the following rules are applied:

I. From previous experience we assume the sku has been temporarily withdrawn but available in at least one of the retailers stores

II. It is flagged as missing and will enter a 6 weeks cycle

III. It is allocated the price previously captured, and included for calculations in the following charts:

i. The Retail Price Inflation Tracker Index

ii. The Product Count Tracker

iii. The Price Stability Tracker

iv. The Average Price Change % Tracker

IV. If a sku price is collected before the end of the six week cycle:

i. The product “loses” it’s 6 week flag and the indices are calculated as shown in 5.Charts.

ii. The “allocated prices” remain and form part of the history

V. If this sku price has not been found after the 6 week cycle:

i. We assume  it is discontinued

ii. The “allocated prices” remain and form part of the history

iii. No further prices are allocated to the sku

5. Charts:

I. The Retail Price Inflation Tracker Index  is worked out in the following method:

I. This is a un-weighted index

II. The average of the current retail price captured/ First price captured (on a moving 52 week cycle) * 100

II. The Product Count Tracker

I. The number of products captured that week (on a moving 52 week cycle)

III. The Price Stability Tracker

I. The number of price changes Up and Down (on a moving 52 week cycle)

IV. The Average Price Change % Tracker

I. It calculated on the data from the Price Stability Tracker

II. This is a un-weighted Index

III. The average of the current retail price captured/ Previous weeks retail price captured * 100 (on a moving 52 week cycle)

V. The Promotional Flag Tracker

I. The count of lines by week, of any sku that has any Promotional flag attached to the price