As Australian retail landscape continues to evolve.
Earlier this week, GfK Australia confirmed the decision by JB Group to withdraw The Good Guys from its data tracking service. In an exclusive interview with Appliance Retailer, managing director, Catherine Eddy said the changing retail landscape may have been a factor in JB’s decision.
“JB Group has a history of not participating in industry currency measurements – for the last 7 or so years anyway, but I believe the extreme concentration in Australia’s electrical retailer channel since the retail closures and acquisitions of 2016 along with the potential disruption ahead with new entrants flagging their intention to start in Australia,” she said.
“We will be consulting heavily with the industry over the next couple of months to ensure our future services are aligned with the changing needs of our supplier and retailer clients. The GfK service has and will continue to evolve to maintain relevance. Different market sectors will have different needs, so services in 2018 are likely to be more customised than the current standard. However, fundamental measures, such as market sizing, feature development, and brand shares, will still be central to what we do.
“Not all industry sectors are affected. Those markets with a less concentrated retailer channel profile will be less impacted, and for those, it will be business as usual. However, for many large, established sectors such as consumer electronics, white goods and IT, the compounding effect of Australia’s largest electrical retailers’ decision not to support a market currency will have a major impact on the way these industry sectors operate.
“All the clients we work with, whether retailers or suppliers, have increasing amounts of data available to them through a number of internal and external sources. But the data is fragmented, and is very rarely from an independent source.
“GfK will apply alternative methodologies to ensure the industries we have worked with for the past 25 years still have measures and insights available to them, so they can continue to make informed decisions. We have huge data warehousing capabilities, and a global, harmonised, database of specifications for the complex technical goods we measure. In addition, we have a fieldwork team, and specialist consumer research capabilities; all of which we’ll mobilise to meet the industry’s needs.
“We have some very long held and very valued relationships with retailers and we will continue to extend our services to all retailers who see the value of working with GfK as an independent aggregator of market data and insights. And that applies to both established and emerging retailers,” she said.
After consultation with supplier and retail clients, GfK will make further announcements about the new suite of services that will be available from January 2018, towards the end of the year.