Modern Trade, Modern Mindsets: Cracking In-Store & Cross-Format Shopper Behaviour
A leading FMCG brand wanted to decode why Modern Trade spends stayed low despite strong footfall. We combined shop-alongs, in-store heatmaps, and a 720-user survey to trace how baskets form, shift, and stall across store types. The insight: it’s not just about discounts—it’s about mission fit, format roles, and trust gaps. The work is now reshaping MT strategy across frequency, value, and visibility.
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.


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