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NPD Celebrates 15 Years in Europe
From the humblest beginnings in 1992, when globalization became a hot-button issue and our clients’ businesses began expanding rapidly on the international stage, NPD has established a strong presence across Europe. Today, NPD data is collected in 12 countries. We have 470 clients, and more than 100 employees work in our offices in five major cities. This year, we celebrate 15 years of market research in European markets.
Getting Started
"We started with a goal of creating pan-European services with consistent methodologies, codification, and reporting for the key industries we were servicing in the U.S.," said Andy Tarshis, group president of NPD in Europe. "This uniformity is what was missing in Europe, and it was what our clients were looking for. Our first step was to build relationships with European research companies to track the European toy market. From there, EuroToys was born, and NPD became a nascent player in the European market research arena."
NPD soon diversified to cover other European markets by securing access to consumer purchase panels across Europe and by developing relationships with retailers for our retail point-of-sale (POS) tracking services. In 1996, leveraging the same consumer panel put in place for EuroToys, NPD increased its offerings in Europe to include athletic footwear – and our sports tracking business was born. This was later expanded to include POS tracking in six countries and took on the name Sports Tracking Europe (STE).
Then it was on to the foodservice market. In 1997, EuroCREST launched in France, with McDonald’s as its first client. Foodservice was NPD’s third line of business overseas, quickly expanding beyond France to Germany, the U.K., and Spain.
The fourth major service was launched in France in 2003: tracking selective beauty. NPD amassed a retail database that covered 90% of consumer sales with weekly, store-by-store census data for all the major retailers, covering fragrances, skin care, and makeup. In 2005, NPD introduced this service in Italy.
What’s New
The company’s success in establishing and growing these four lines of business laid the groundwork for additional growth and expansion. That expansion continues today.
Beauty
"NPD added market-level applications such as store groups and customized areas to our studies for clients in France, and we launched weekly reports on fragrance and cosmetics market share", said Martine Ringwald, vice president of NPD’s beauty business in Europe. "Now we can help our clients dig deeper into the ‘whys’ of the beauty trends we’re seeing."
Foodservice
NPD recently launched SupplyTrac in Germany. While CREST reports on consumer purchases of meals and snacks in commercial restaurants, convenience and food stores, workplace canteens, and vending machines, SupplyTrac allows NPD to track – for the first time ever – manufacturers’ market shares in the foodservice environment. NPD also developed MenuTrac for its European clientele, which is a tool that allows restaurant chains to optimize and better manage their menus.
“We plan to take our SalesTrac service into some of the smaller European countries, begin collecting CREST information online as is done in the U.S., and expand our services into Italy,” said Jochen Pinsker, vice president of NPD’s foodservice business in Europe.
Sports
Sports Tracking Europe has created an integrated POS sports apparel tracking product for Germany and France. Sports Tracking Europe (STE) offers international marketers consistent country-by-country market information on consumers’ athletic footwear, and sports apparel purchases – adding the retail perspective complements our consumer insight.
“Since we’ve added outdoor and running apparel in Germany and multi-sport men’s products in France, our information is more comprehensive than ever,” said Eva Dorobek, vice president, NPD Sports Tracking Europe. “By expanding our coverage and entering new locales, NPD can provide a view of the sports market in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Japan that no other company can match.”
Toys
EuroToys remains the only pan-European service that tracks retail sales and consumer purchasing of toys and games. Working with more than 150 clients in Europe, NPD now tracks over two million items across more than 200 different retail groups.
“We recently launched POS data services for Austria, adding to the successful data services in place for the U.K., Italy, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal,” said NPD EuroToys President Jane Zimmy. “Combined with our toys and video games services in North America and Australia, we can provide a very broad – and deep – view of these industries.”
Onward, to the next milestones
While the growth of the business in Europe has been nothing if not fast-paced, there’s plenty more looming on the horizon. “Next year’s goals are as ambitious as ever,” Tarshis said. “With the launch of full-scale online data collection to replace the paper diary panels, the launch of our Nursery tracking service, and the country expansion of our beauty business beyond France and Italy, we probably won’t catch up on lost sleep in 2008. We’ve exceeded our vision for NPD in Europe, and we plan to continue to improve our services – and increase our market coverage – during the next 15 years.”
To learn more about NPD’s services in Europe and around the globe, contact . . .
Beauty: Martine_Ringwald@npd.com
Foodservice: Jochen_Pinsker@npd.com
Sports: Eva_Dorobek@npd.com
Toys: Jane_Zimmy@npd.com