Scan data tells you what sold. It cannot show you what was picked up and put back, what was never seen, or which shelf tag changed a mind. Most of those moments last a few seconds and are forgotten by the time a survey asks about them. A shop-along catches them as they happen.
The method
A researcher meets a shopper at the store door and follows them through a trip they had already planned. The researcher stays a step behind, logs each stop and how long it lasts, and notes every product picked up, turned over or put back. At the category shelf, right after the choice, a short point-of-purchase interview asks what just happened and why.
Online shopping gets the same treatment. The shopper shares a phone or computer screen and thinks aloud while we record every search, scroll and tap. On a delivery app, the search results page is the shelf.
The question it answers
Why do we lose shoppers at the shelf, and what would win them back? Shop-alongs earn their keep when sales are soft and nobody can say why, before a shelf reset or a pack change, and when a brand does well online but not in store, or the other way around.
How we run it
We recruit category buyers who already plan a trip to a named store that week, with quotas for your regulars, competitor regulars and people who switch around. Twenty to thirty shop-alongs usually show the patterns. To size them, we add 100 or more short intercepts at the shelf: a researcher watches shoppers at the set without going along, then asks a few questions after the choice. The interview always includes a few questions about habits, such as brand loyalty and price, so we can set what people say next to what we watched them do.
What you get
Each shopper's path and time at the shelf, a funnel from looked to picked up to bought for every brand, the reasons behind each put-back, the moments where the decision turned, a comparison of what shoppers said with what they did, and a ranked list of shelf and pack fixes your sales team can take to a retailer.
Where it goes wrong
A researcher who steers the shopper, even with a glance, spoils the trip, so we follow and stay quiet until the shelf. Two dozen shop-alongs explain why but cannot tell you how many, which is why we pair them with intercepts. Being watched makes people slower and more careful, so time and counts come from the unaccompanied intercepts. And one retailer's shelf can look very different from another's, so we go to the stores that matter most for your volume.
The sample below follows a fictional sparkling energy drink called Voltline through 24 shop-alongs, 18 in three grocery stores and 6 on a delivery app, plus 120 shelf intercepts. Click the tabs to move from the shopper roster to the aisle paths, the pick-up funnel, what shoppers said against what they did, and the shelf fixes. Every brand, shopper and number is invented.
Illustrative only. All brands, stores, shoppers and figures are fictional. Open the sample full screen.