In times of rapid change, understanding in-store consumer behavior is essential to company growth. What makes them pick a product off the shelf? Why do they put it back? And if they purchase it, what makes your product stand out in a sea of undifferentiated lookalikes?
Shelf testing gets to the heart of the issue, delving into that crucial question of why your customer does—or doesn’t—choose your product. Today, virtual shelf testing is rapidly becoming an essential methodology in the market research landscape—mimicking the in-store shopping experience while providing valuable customer insights. An effective shelf layout is crucial in this process, as it replicates a typical retail setting and considers factors such as the number of shelves, shelf height, product spacing, and alignment with research objectives.
We recently sat down with our friends at Informed Decisions Group (IDG) to talk all things virtual shelf-testing, including best practices, tips, tricks, and more. Watch the on-demand recording now.
What is virtual shelf testing and why do you need it?
Product testing and placement have always been challenging. However, the effects of the pandemic and societal and business changes have forged a new landscape. Big brands now advertise directly to consumers, using SEO to enhance their product visibility. E-commerce rose rapidly during the pandemic and is here to stay—with a significant percentage of purchases occurring online. Finally, retailers are now highly focused on offering profitable SKUs on shelves that simultaneously attract consumers while stimulating growth.
Industry pressures make it important for researchers to provide cost-effective, meaningful data that reflects shelf-level consumer decision-making. And virtual testing can help researchers achieve these goals.
Virtual shelf tests allow researchers to replicate a consumer’s shopping experience at an actual store. Respondents remove products from the virtual shelf, look at the item in detail, and add products to their shopping cart—but there’s also the option to put the product back on the shelf. A virtual shelf test captures data related to these actions and decisions, offering insights that support testing of new or existing products, price testing, and shelf positioning options.
How does it work?
Respondents are given a store-like shopping experience, including visuals that mimic actual shelf placement. Different shelf layouts can be tested to optimize product placement and design effectiveness. They can review available products with shelf-like facings, consider discounted products with realistic sale tags, and build and review their cart selections. Virtual shelf testing can also include a “none” option so respondents can indicate if they would walk away without making a purchase.
Follow-up questions help researchers explore consumer decision-making more deeply and view heatmaps that identify critical placements. Detailed metrics are essential to virtual shelf testing and include insights into cart spend, cart size, products purchased (total and unique), and products picked up. Timing elements include time at the shelf, time first to click, and time of closer looks.
What are the benefits of shelf testing
Cost-effective research: Researchers can perform virtual shelf tests quickly and accurately, saving on the labor and expenses associated with in-person, store-level testing. Companies incur fewer travel expenses, test product inventory costs, and labor associated with physical store re-creation testing and setup.
Speed and efficiency: Researchers can gather data quickly, allowing teams to make quicker decisions and helping cross-functional teams to pivot to support new insights.
Geographic reach: Virtual shelf testing can be customized to specific regions and diverse audiences while offering wider reach. Traditional testing captures in-store information that replicates these audiences is expensive,time-consuming, and often more limited in location and representation.
Flexibility and customization: Researchers can easily customize virtual environments to meet study requirements. Scenario options, product options, and product configurations are limitless, allowing researchers to dive deeply into resulting insights and re-configure where appropriate.
Why should you use virtual shelf testing?
Virtual shelf testing offers detailed insights into consumer behavior using an online simulated environment. It helps researchers provide accurate, cost-effective results to their product and marketing teams. In a business era where companies are highly focused on bottom-line profitability, putting the right product on the right shelf is critical to a company's success.
Enjoy faster and easier setup
Designing, configuring, and deploying virtual shelf tests has never been easier. With aytm's Shelf Test, researchers can confidently build tests faster than ever—drastically reducing the effort and setup time normally required.
Craft immersive research tests
We designed our user interface to capture the behaviors of shopping in a real store. Respondents can open doors, grab products off a shelf, and examine items in multiple high-definition product views—even 3D.
Customize the user experience
Researchers can guide respondents by starting them to the left, right, or center of a shelf or allowing the program to randomize these options. Respondents can see the entire shelf while researchers gain valuable insights into how consumers shop for products.
What kind of data can you capture?
In contrast to historically expensive in-store shelf testing, researchers gain real-time analysis, staying ahead of triggers that influence brand interest. Real-time automated charts, data visualizations, and storytelling capabilities enhance the user's ability to capture, analyze, and communicate results. Key data insights include:
- Purchase intent: The number of respondents who purchased the product.
- Purchase amount: The average number of products purchased.
- Purchase spend: The average amount of money spent on a product.
- Attention span: The average time spent viewing a product.
- Time-to-cart: The average time elapsed before a product was placed in a cart.
- Heatmaps: Shows the focal points of product interest on a shelf.
- E-commerce testing: optimal configuration of online store shelves.
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Create a realistic shopping environment
Virtual shelf testing has the advantage of cost, speed, and efficiency over traditional in-store testing. But perhaps a researcher's biggest concern is:
Will an online environment truly mimic a realistic shopping experience for our customers?
It's a valid question. Despite the pressures for quick results, as a researcher, you also want accuracy and a realistic shopping environment.
The aytm platform allows for full aisle displays without encumbering an entire aisle of products.
One of the most significant benefits is the ability to access our constantly growing library of skins for stores like Target, Costco, Publix, Walgreens, Walmart, and more. Researchers can drag and drop product images into our platform to create realistic shopping experiences that allow them to test how product features impact in-store consumer decisions.
Have a specific layout or planogram you want to follow in a digital build of the shelf? You can use aytm Logic to arrange product facings in a specific order, as well as define product stacking rules. Need even greater customization? Just ask. We can help.
When to use virtual shelf testing
Virtual shelf testing is a great way to gain insights into customer behaviors, but how do you incorporate it into your testing protocols? Our customers commonly use the aytm virtual shelf testing programs for a variety of research goals.
- Package redesign: Assess the impact of an array of packaging designs for shelf appeal and recognition.
- Placement testing: Identify the optimal shelf space and share of shelf space to maximize visibility and sales volume.
- New product launches: Evaluate consumer reactions and purchase intent.
- Price comparisons: Test different pricing strategies to optimize sales and profitability.
- Promotional campaigns: Measure the effectiveness of your promotions and discounts.
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Step-by-step guide to virtual shelf testing
Now that you understand the advantages of virtual shelf testing let's review the steps and best practices required to implement a test.
Step 1: Planning and design
- Define clear research objectives, target audience, key questions, budget, and timeline.
- Choose a virtual shelf testing platform that offers realistic, cost-effective results.
- Create a realistic virtual environment that mirrors your target retail setting as closely as possible.
- Carefully consider product placement, including competitor offerings.
- Develop shopper scenarios that align with your research objectives.
Best practice: Use high-quality images, realistic product representations, and intuitive navigation.
Avoid: Overwhelming participants with complex environments and multiple shelves or scenarios within the larger test. We suggest you stick to monadic design as much as possible to keep the virtual environment simple and user-friendly.
Step 2: Execute your research design
- Recruit a representative sample of participants that matches your target audience.
- Implement effective data collection methods, including surveys, eye-tracking, and clickstream data.
- Design surveys that capture both quantitative (e.g., purchase intent, ratings) and qualitative data (open-ended feedback).
Best practice: Encourage active participation through interactive elements and clear instructions.
Avoid: Limited scenarios that restrict your ability to test and understand consumer behaviors.
Step 3: Analysis
- Track key metrics such as attention, consideration, purchase intent, and findability.
- Analyze qualitative feedback to gain deeper insights into consumer preferences and motivations.
- Generate comprehensive reports that summarize findings and provide actionable recommendations
Best practice: Choose metrics that align with your specific research goals (e.g., purchase intent or share of shelf). And clearly communicate findings and highlight key insights and implications for decision-making.
Avoid: Neglecting qualitative data that provides valuable context and reveals underlying motivations behind consumer choices.
Key takeaways
The business landscape has changed, requiring companies to offer profitable products that consumers will buy. Virtual shelf testing is a convenient, market-tested tool that allows companies to quickly gather information and make product decisions based on consumer behaviors.
Historically, shelf testing has been expensive to conduct and cumbersome to deploy. The aytm platform makes virtual shelf testing cost-effective and realistic, improving your speed to market.
Virtual shelf testing provides valuable consumer feedback that must be accurately interpreted and applied to real-world scenarios. Using an intuitive, adaptable tool makes gathering, interpreting, and relaying actionable insights easier and more effective.
Today, researchers need to be productive and focused. The aytm platform helps researchers create valuable insights that replicate real-world scenarios efficiently and effectively, supporting cross-functional decision-making.
When it comes to bringing the efficiencies of virtual shelves to in-person testing, you should know that IDG leverages aytm's virtual shelf technology along with their touchscreen displays. This allows for in-field research that offers additional capabilities like shop-alongs, eye tracking, and more. If you're interested, click here to learn more about IDG.
