Manufacturers have spent years using on-demand field capacity to get accurate store-level information and make decisions on evidence rather than assumption.
Retailers have just as much to gain. The value is the same — real-time feedback on what is actually happening in store — but the questions are different. Here are four of them.
1. Availability
Out-of-stocks cost sales and customer satisfaction in the same moment. Checking whether products are actually on shelf — particularly at peak hours and at weekends, when it matters most and when staff are least available — is a genuine operational problem.
A community of shoppers already in those stores delivers on-shelf availability data in real time, early enough to correct the gap rather than record it. This is what our In-store insights solution is built for.
2. Compliance
Retail keeps getting more demanding. Shoppers expect more, e-commerce competes hard with physical stores, and manufacturers are now better equipped to measure in-store execution than the retailers they supply. Consistency across the network is what holds the proposition together.
An on-demand community, able to act anywhere at short notice, is a practical way to verify that planograms are executed as agreed — and to fix them where they are not, through Merchandising & Sales.
3. Service
Understanding the path to purchase, and what shapes it from the customer's side, is the basis of any programme aimed at raising satisfaction.
Mystery shopping answers it directly. Real shoppers test how prepared store staff are, and report on cleanliness, promotional material and overall service quality. Location-based data shared in real time tells a retail chain which specific stores are falling behind — which is the difference between a network-level score and something a regional manager can act on.
4. Competition
What competitors are doing on price and on service quality is a persistent blind spot. Gathering that intelligence properly is expensive, which is usually why it does not happen when budgets tighten.
An on-demand model changes the cost structure. Community members see available tasks on their phones, filtered by experience level and by proximity to the point of sale — so the work goes to someone already nearby, rather than sending a representative across a region for a single visit. Competitor prices, promotions and shelf execution are captured on the same visit through In-store insights.
Which of the Four Is Costing You Most?
Tell us where your blind spot is and we'll show you what the data looks like across your own network.
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