For some strange reason we are fielding lots of inbound traffic from managers seeking a better model for baseline sales. This has been a persistent issue in the industry for at least 20 years, but only now are the calls coming…odd. For those of you not familiar with the concept for the CPG industry, a sales baseline is an estimate of sales in the absence of retailer price promotion. You can learn more about the concept in this sales baselines blog post and trade promotion optimization white paper.

Just know that without an accurate baseline, trade promotion optimization analysis will be inaccurate, and more importantly many of the decisions made from the analysis will be wrong. Some in the industry will say there are many ways to calculate a baseline (true), and given that, there is no way to tell which model or estimates are the best (false). There actually is a method for measuring which baseline estimates are the most accurate, and if you are interested in the technical details you can find them in this academic paper.

7th Annual Food & Beverage Study Shows Gains in Organic and E-Commerce Driven by Changing Lifestyle of Millennials

Shelton, Conn. – September 24, 2019 – Consumers are more frequently shopping for groceries online, according to the TABS Analytics 7th Annual Food and Beverage Consumables Study. E-Commerce grocery purchases nearly doubled in the past year, with 66 percent of consumers noting their loyalty to shopping through this channel and Amazon, Walmart and Target making the largest gains in penetration. However, the greater demand is revealing significant structural problems – low margins and unpredictable shipping and fulfillment costs – that will impact the profitability and sustainability of the business model.

Drogue Offers Significant Tier 1 CPG Experience as TABS Continues Strategic Evolution

Shelton, Conn. – July 22, 2019 – TABS Analytics today announced that Arthur (Art) B. Drogue, who held executive roles at Unilever, Best Foods, Nabisco and other major Consumer Packaged Goods companies, has joined TABS’s board of directors.

2019 Report Offers Analysis of Top 10 VMS Trends Defining the Past Decade

Shelton, Conn. – June 27, 2019 – Mass market brick and mortar stores, like Walmart and Target, and eCommerce retailers have seen the most success in attracting buyers of vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements (VMS), according the TABS Analytics 12^th Annual Vitamin Study. However, after more than doubling in the past decade, overall online penetration has plateaued at about 17%. This stagnation in online purchasing leads to questions about whether eCommerce can ever exceed more than one-fifth of the total market in any consumer package goods (CPG) categories.

Single platform to provide manufacturers with unprecedented, full-spectrum analytics suite for their trade promotion spending

Shelton, Conn. – June 20, 2019 – TABS Analytics today announced that it is collaborating with CPGToolBox to deliver an integrated trade promotion and optimization solution for consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers. The joint venture brings together the two organizations’ best-in-class solutions to forecast, plan, settle and analyze promotions, and then conduct a rigorous analytical overview of the optimal promotional strategies and tactics for clients' brands.

Chances are that when it comes to eCommerce, one of the biggest trends you may be hearing about is the rise of online grocery. Some of the biggest names in grocery retailing are adopting online services, and many others in consumer-packaged goods (CPG) are considering branching their operations into this area of eComm. However, much of the data that TABS Analytics has collected suggests that online grocery not only doesn’t have the explosive future potential that some may believe, it is also inherently economically flawed. Yes, some retailers may be making money off of it now, but for the vast majority of them, online grocery will never work.

With so much buzz - and misinformation - about the world of online grocery, it is a prime subject to which TABS can apply its analytical approach and weigh in on the matter, as we did in our April 2019 webinar, Online Grocery, Are We There Yet?. As an industry leader in outsourced CPG analytics and consulting, our goal is to give our clients and the industry at-large analyses to drive fact-based, effective decisions.

Read on to learn about our findings in online grocery. 

Addition of Leading Virtual Shopper Research and Retail Strategy Firm Enhances TABS's Data Analytics Expertise and Extends Platform to Support Expanding Array of Clients and Categories

Shelton, Conn. – May 7, 2019 – TABS Analytics today announced that it acquired Decision Insight, a Kansas City, Mo.-based global shopper marketing research and analytics firm with expertise in both brick-and-mortar and online shopping environments. Decision Insight is a pioneer in virtual shopping research, providing shopper insights and retail strategies about shopper behaviors and motivations for manufacturers, retailers and restaurants.

In November of 2018, TABS Analytics conducted the fifth annual survey of purchase trends affecting the U.S. cosmetics market.

TABS, founded by Dr. Kurt Jetta in 1998, is a leader in consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry for outsourced sales and marketing analytics.

We provide sales and marketing professionals with detailed CPG analytics to give them a competitive advantage when determining their sales, marketing and business strategies.

TABS Takes on the Cosmetic Market

As we have done for the past five years, we applied our survey analytics methodology to the cosmetics market in the U.S.to measure all-outlet trends across a broad spectrum of color cosmetics segments.

Our analysis focuses on information related to consumers who make regular purchases of cosmetics. To this end, we survey 1,000 women ages 18 to 75 at the same time each year to avoid seasonality conflicts.

One of the goals of our annual survey is to provide a cosmetic market analysis report that will help businesses develop a more targeted marketing strategy for cosmetic products.

Our assessment of the cosmetics market for 2018 included the following touch points:

• What types of cosmetics products consumers are buying
• Which outlets consumers are choosing for regular purchases
• What factors influence cosmetic purchase decision
• How behavior has changed from year to year

For an overview of the highlights of our cosmetic market analysis with insights from Dr. Jetta, read on.

Strategic Acquisition Enhances TABS Analytics' Integrated Planning Solutions

Shelton, Conn. – March 25, 2019 – TABS Analytics announced today that it has acquired Hybrid Intelligence Inc., a Shelton, Conn.-based company that develops technology and provides services to operationalize data and analytics capabilities. Hybrid Intelligence specializes in enterprise integration, data management, analysis, planning and analytics for consumer-packaged goods (CPG), manufacturing and industrials.

In August 2018, TABS Analytics rounded up comprehensive data to delve into specific food and beverage industry trends as they relate to consumables.

This information outlines shopping patterns and trends, including online grocery trends, snack food trends, organic food trends and other highly detailed statistics specific to the food and beverage industry.     

The Experts in Consumer Analytics®

Since 1998, marketers in the food and beverage industry have relied on the detailed analytics of TABS research, founded by Dr. Kurt Jetta in 1998, to track consumer shopping habits and trends.

Our technology-enabled analytics firm aims to simplify and improve the way analytics for consumer products are conducted through innovation to provide our clients with a strong, competitive advantage.

And our techniques get results — TABS is a leading outsourced sales and marketing analytics firm in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) industry.

As we do each year, we recently took our innovative analytics techniques and applied them to our survey on 2018 food and beverage industry trends, including:

• Food & Beverage category purchase frequency
• General Food & Beverage category trends
• Demographic profiles and deal preferences
• Outlet shopping patterns, with a focus on emerging channels and eCommerce
• Consumer attitudes towards “on-trend” concepts
• Additional content on candy trends

For a brief overview of the state of the food and beverage industry trends for 2018, however, just read on.