CPG Data Proliferation

I’ll be the first to admit that I often shop with my head in my phone – mostly because I shop with a list that’s already on my phone, but also because I can Google items if impulsively purchasing to see product reviews, or check various price offers for larger, non-impulsive purchases.

If shopping online, though, I’ll expect that this information already exists on the site to help with my purchasing decision.  That’s exactly what data companies in the CPG Industry are adding to internet retail, eCommerce, mobile marketplaces and real-time, omnichannel shopping destinations.

Forrester’s most recent eCommerce forecast estimates online retail sales to exceed $500 billion by 2020, up from $373 billion in 2016.

With real-time, shopping data pulled and pushed across the internet, the recycling of information in the CPG space is snowballing.

The CPG Industry has long relied on retrieving sales data directly from retailers like Walmart or indirectly thru syndicated market data providers like Nielsen.

As CPG companies begin to focus more on e-commerce and dealing with online retailers due to shifting consumer shopping trends, more and more data is beginning to fill this expanding pipeline.

New apps and companies are emerging to facilitate online and offline purchase data exchanges.  Data originates from receipt scanning apps like Receipt Hog or Ibotta and e-commerce services like Slice, where you can track all of your packages, purchases, price drops, and product recall info in one place.

ItemMaster, a spinoff of Peapod.com, recently struck a deal with Walmart.com to deliver certified brand content and IM content along with the shopping experiences for one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the World.

Apps and data services like this will not only help consumers to get a better handle on purchases but ultimately businesses to get a better handle on consumer demand and trends in real time.