Common Survey Revisions

Each time you submit a survey, the project’s Research Manager will review your data submission to check for accuracy and noticeable changes between your visits. If your Research Manager has questions about the data, you will receive a Revision email asking for clarification and/or corrections. 

The following are some of the most common 'revision' questions that come up during the data validation process. Self-editing to catch these common issues and for any inadvertent data entry errors will help your data submission/revisions process go much more quickly! 

Note: At the end of your survey, you are able to download and save your complete survey as either a Word document or PDF. Saving your surveys is a great strategy to help you do a quick self-edit of the current data submission and remember to explain any differences that may be important. 

Selling Space and Style Counts

Are there noticeable changes in selling space and/or style counts between the previous month’s and current month’s visit?

We are always very interested in changes in the selling space and/or style counts for the brands/categories we are collecting data on. But, substantial changes in space or styles could also indicate an error in collecting or entering survey data. If you see noticeable changes in your store, please make a note at the end of your survey in the box that asks ‘Do you have any other comments or observations that you would like to share that were not covered elsewhere in this survey?

Pricing

Are there noticeable changes in pricing between the previous month’s and current month’s visit? 

Pricing is integral to our data collection and reporting. Substantial changes in prices could indicate that something is about to shift for the brands/categories we are tracking. If your prices are substantially different between visits, please be sure to double check your notes for possible typos in the data entry. It is important that you are able to validate the accuracy of your pricing data, so if you see big changes in pricing, be sure to call that out at the end of your survey. 

Are the Min, Mode, and Max Prices correctly reported?

It is equally important that the prices you do record are reported accurately. For most of our projects, you will report Minimum, Mode, and Maximum prices. Double checking that the Min is equal to/ lower than the Mode and lower than the Max, and that the Mode is equal to/lower than the Max is an important self-edit check.

Promotions

Promotions can be a bit tricky, especially at first, because there is a lot of information to collect and report. These checks will help you avoid some of the most common promotion revisions.

Is there a percent of inventory or styles on promotion, but no promotional detail on the promotions page?
Remember, each category that has a % of inventory on promotion must have a corresponding entry on the promotions page where you will provide detailed information on the promotion. If you have a percent of inventory on promotion but missed collecting the associated promotional details, you will need to return to the store to gather it.

Does the percent of inventory on/off promotion equal 100%?

For some of our projects, you will be asked to estimate the percent of inventory on promotion. This metric is most frequently used in apparel projects where figuring out the exact number of styles on promotion would be daunting. For each category on promotion, the % on/off promotion must equal 100%. For example, if approximately 15% the inventory for Shirts in your store were on promotion, then you would report 85% off promotion. If there is nothing on the category on promotion, you would enter 0% on promotion and 100% off promotion. You cannot leave these cells blank, even if there is no promotional activity for the category. 

Does the percent of styles on/off promotion equal 100%?

For other projects, for example handbags, you will provide a concrete number of styles that are on promotion. Similar to the percent of inventory on promotion, each category’s percent of styles on/off promotion must equal 100%.

Unlike the percent of inventory on promotion, which is an estimate, the percent of styles on promotion will be a concrete report on the total number of styles of a certain product/category on promotion. For example, if you saw 20 total styles of a specific collection of handbags and of those 20 styles, 12 styles were on promotion, you would divide 12 (on promo) / 20 (total) to get 0.60, or 60% of styles on promotion. On your promotion page, be sure you have accounted for the promotional activity on all 12 of these styles. 

Does the minimum price on the brand/category page align with promotional prices?

Often, the lowest price on an item/category is the promotional price. For any items/categories on promotion, double check that the lowest promotional price is the minimum price reported on the item/category page. The minimum price should always be the absolute lowest price one could pay for that item/category. 

Traffic

Are there noticeable changes in traffic between the previous month’s and current month’s visit?

For any project where we are collecting in-store traffic data, differences in traffic patterns are incredibly interesting for us. If you encounter substantial differences in store traffic, for example last month there were two people in that specific section of the store and this month there were 10, any insight into what you saw in the store that may have prompted this change in traffic is important (and interesting!). You can make a note about these changes at the end of your survey in the box that asks ‘Do you have any other comments or observations that you would like to share that were not covered elsewhere in this survey’?