The Challenge

In a rapidly evolving retail landscape where traditional and modern trade formats coexist with e-commerce and Q-commerce, a leading FMCG major needed to understand why average monthly spends in Modern Trade (MT) accounts remained low—despite high shopper footfall. Was it a frequency issue? A basket size issue? Or rooted in platform perceptions? The business needed sharper insight into shopper journeys, decision-making, and account-switching behaviours to recalibrate its MT strategy.

Our Approach

We adopted a dual-track insight engine, blending cognitive walkthroughs with scaled quant intercepts:

• Cognitive Shop-Alongs: Accompanied shopping journeys and in-store heatmaps, followed by decision-making depth interviews—designed to trace shopper planning, deviation, category flow, and interaction with visibility elements.

• Shopper Survey (n=720): Captured behavioural patterns across cities and store formats (national, regional, local) to size motivations, preference hierarchies, and account role differentiation.

• Triangulation across Missions, Formats, and Life-Stages: Allowed decoding of account loyalties, category elasticity, and role of discounting vs. assortment in shaping brand and basket behaviour.

The Impact

• The integrated output reframed the MT playbook around three unlocks: frequency, value, and basket expansion. The study identified mission-specific behaviours (monthly stock-up vs. tactical top-ups), highlighted trust barriers in fresh/staple categories, and spotlighted gaps in omnichannel transitions. 

• It is now guiding a phased MT re-architecture across retail formats, with sharper role definitions for each store type, optimised visibility interventions, and tailored promotions that fit the shopper’s real, lived rhythm.