The thorny issue of data transparency – or rather the lack of it – was brought to the fore by Managing Director of L’Oréal Travel Retail, Vincent Boinay in a recent exclusive interview with TRBusiness.

Responding to that criticism at the time, UK-based research and category development specialist, Counter Intelligence Retail (CiR) said that some data sharing is, in fact, taking place. Today the analyst reveals how industry stakeholders are using industry intelligence to generate better category growth.

Boinay was forthright in his view: “Compared to the domestic market, we have far less information to drive the business. This is crucially important. It’s not just about information to measure the market share and see who’s the biggest. It’s about driving the business for our common interest.”

‘SIGNIFICANT GAINS’

In a statement today, CiR says: “Despite the general industry view that there is a limited amount of data sharing in the travel retail channel, there is a greater level of disclosure now than at any time before and it has delivered some significant sales gains.”

Although this cooperation is still being done behind firewalls and NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), the practice is on the increase. Managing Director, Garry Stasiulevicuis comments: “We’ve established a significant number of tri-party relationships where retailers, suppliers and CiR are using data to drive sales. During the past few years this approach has helped deliver substantial brand and category growth.’

Peter-Jan Rozenberg, Director, Schiphol Airport Retail [now majority owned by Gebr Heinemann] comments: “We’ve worked with CiR on projects across different categories. CiR has analysed our data in detail and distilled very interesting customer insights to drive sales and our understanding of customer behaviour. This has really helped in our category development.”

EPOS USAGE

Multiple data sources are also now being used to gather information including electronic point-of-sale (EPOS). Stasiulevicuis says: “Our approach is not one-dimensional. We’re using sources including traveller statistics, retail-based measurements, and our EPOS service to create a platform of intelligence. To be clear, this is not about ‘big data’ but about ‘smart data’.

The aim of all this is to create and prioritise strategies and direct brand and retailer activations, the ultimate aim being to get more product into travelling shoppers’ baskets.

This methodology can also identify market trends and address underperformance, claims CiR, through the analysis of metrics such as sales data and shopper behaviour analysis to create clear action plans for sales improvement.

NITR DELIVERS +17% GROWTH

Nestlé International Travel Retail Global Head of Sales, Alan Brennan says: “We’ve been working with the CiR model for a number of years and where we’ve activated we’ve seen substantial sales growth for the category. We’ve used this approach across a number of retail-based projects including recent work in Europe where we delivered +17% category growth.”

Brennan adds: “In short, here at NITR we believe that greater data sharing and mining is business critical if we are to collectively better understand the traveller and shopper at a more targeted level. This in turn allows for a more customised retail approach.”

CiR’s intelligence hub called Business Lounge has been the key platform for brands to access, and use, large amounts of data. This tool (click here for details) provides traveller and nationality statistics for thousands of locations, airport and store level maps, more than 40,000 images of retail and brand execution plus a detailed ‘at-fixture’ and on-line price reporting service. New services – due to be live soon – include the integration of existing data services and the launch of a PAX and nationality forecasting tool.

‘NOT A DARK ART’

Stasiulevicuis concludes: “The commercial benefit from data-sharing and a collaborative tri-party approach is really clear. We’re committed not just to more data sharing, but ensuring we help the industry use the right data in the right way to grow the entire market.”

“I believe we can break down more barriers and create a market place where data sharing and its use is not a dark art but common practice in the united goal of accelerating the pace at which our industry operates.”