Consumer Expectations: Is CPG Serving to Satisfy?

October 2010
Executive Overview

SymphonyIRI's Times & Trends highlights new developments and critical events across all major CPG categories and channels, providing powerful benchmarking data to help guide your strategic decisions. This issue of Times & Trends reveals the expectations consumers have set for the packaged goods industry and measures CPG marketer performance against these expectations.

Introduction

Even in the best of environments, winning isn’t easy. Consumers are a discerning bunch. They have demonstrated a willingness to shop around to get what they want. They will shop across channels, they will switch brands, and in some instances, they will exit a category completely. These behaviors are seen even in the best economic conditions. Today’s economy is far from “best condition” and today’s CPG environment is anything but easy.

The U.S. economy has officially emerged from recessionary status. Consumers, on the other hand, remain very much entrenched in a conservative mindset. Despite economic brightening, many are still struggling to find steady financial footing. Clearly, consumers are turning to packaged goods marketers to help them find their way.

Savvy marketers who understand these expectations and related consumer perceptions have a distinct advantage in addressing the most intimate needs of their key and target consumer segments.

Select Findings

CPG marketers have significant opportunity to improve consumer perceptions around price and value. Saving money has become a key criterion in the store and product selection process. While consumers are satisfied with sale frequency and the quality of loyalty programs, a disparity is evident across consumer expectations for the prevalence of everyday low prices (EDLP), general product price point, the value offered by CPG products and other price/value considerations.

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Across a variety of measures, nearly 90% of consumers look to CPG retailers to offer fast and efficient retail experiences, but this experience is being hampered by perceptions of less-than-ideal product assortment and difficult to navigate store aisles. One area in need of attention is product assortment. This relates to actual product selection, and to the ability to quickly and easily identify desired products.

Select chart to enlarge.

See the complete report in the "Consumer Expectations: Is CPG Serving to Satisfy? " pdf.