STI: PopStats - Success Stories

Retailers Reap Rewards of Smarter Market Insight

PopStats Solves Tough Market Research Problems - and Delivers Exceptional Results

STI: PopStats has only been on the demographics scene since 2001 - yet, in this short time, it has already made a significant impact on the market research activities of dozens of retailers. In fact, STI: PopStats has logged several impressive success stories - from saving one company nearly $1 million on market research, to preventing a site selection disaster, to pinpointing hidden high-growth areas.

As the market research industry's first and only quarterly population estimates, STI: PopStats is transforming companies' site selection problems into effective solutions, and delivering profitable results. We selected six of our many success stories to share with you - which together will give you a glimpse of our innovative population estimating product in action including:

• Retailer Saves $1 Million - and Gains Accurate Market Insight
• Developer Narrowly Averts a Costly Market Selection Disaster
• STI: PopStats Identifies Hidden Markets - with no Competition
• Company Enjoys Timely Data - and Intra-Departmental Harmony
• Chain Gains Confidence to Pursue New High-Growth Markets
• Accurate Quarterly Estimates Solve Mysterious Flat Growth

Now we'd like the opportunity to help elevate your marketing research activities to the highest level of accuracy and profitability possible - so you can join the many leading-edge companies already reaping the rewards of smarter market insight.

Retailer Saves $1 Million - and Gains Accurate Market Insight

One of the nation's largest national retailers had traditionally only used demographic data for basic reporting, because the company consistently found the data to be outdated. Instead, the retailer relied on its large staff of market analysts to analyze new markets in-person. They typically spent a week in each market gathering local demographic data at local government agencies and city planning departments. Maintaining this level of first-hand market research cost the company an average of $1 million annually.

In 2001, the retailer tried STI: PopStats, largely because the product delivered updated and highly accurate population estimates every three months. In fact, the product was so accurate and so timely the company was able to significantly reduce the travel and man-hour expenses of in-field research. Today the company only sends analysts to markets identified as unstable by STI: PopStats' Growth Stability Indicator (GSI), which judges the past stability of market growth.

BOTTOM LINE: This retailer's travel and labor costs decreased by $1 million per annum. Plus, its site location decision-making improved with STI: PopStats' accurate quarterly trend analysis.

Developer Narrowly Averts a Costly Market Selection Disaster

In 2003, a fast-growing and progressive big box retailer was on the verge of building a new store in a new location when it made a last-minute decision to test the market with STI: PopStats. While other market data reported that the entire region was growing at about four percent per year, STI: PopStats found that there was no growth in the area - except for two small neighborhoods growing at nine percent annually. The retailer was so surprised at the different results that it sent a team to re-do the study in-person. After extensive in-field research, the team reported that STI: PopStats' numbers were right on target.

The retailer immediately canceled development of the new location - saving itself the time and cost of an unsuccessful store.

BOTTOM LINE: This retailer narrowly averted the fiscal disaster of building a new store in a region with nominal population growth.

STI: PopStats Identifies Hidden High-Growth Markets

Some companies do not knowingly have problems with their current demographic data - especially if they are regional retailers. They believe that between their current data resource and their own knowledge of the market they know everything necessary to make profitable market decisions. However, one of these regional retailers was curious about STI: PopStats' innovative approach to population counts, and decided to test drive it by creating its annual strategic development plan using both its traditional data product and STI: PopStats.

Unlike its competitor, the STI: PopStats analysis identified two sub-markets in which this southern regional retailer was completely unaware. What's more, an in-person site review revealed that there were no competitors in the two areas.

BOTTOM LINE: By employing STI: PopStats' accurate quarterly estimates this retailer identified two competitor-free new markets, which it immediately put on the development fast-track - with full confidence that they could lock-in market share before any competitors arrived.

Company Enjoys Timely Data - and Intra-Departmental Harmony

A large fast-growing national retailer was constantly fielding disagreements between its various department heads over the validity of its demographic data - particularly about "timing." The majority of demographic providers date their estimates with the vague term "annual," making no further effort to pinpoint its exact time frame.

This retailer brought STI: PopStats onboard because the product provides both the most up-to-date population estimates available today, and because every quarterly release is verified with an "as of" date stamp every January, April, July, and October. As a result, one of the many benefits the retailer enjoyed was a significant reduction in time-consuming intra-departmental disputes over the data's validity.

BOTTOM LINE: STI: PopStats consistently correlates with the retailer's real-world findings - and it now helps bring harmony among the various departments.

Retailer Gains Confidence to Pursue New High-Growth Markets

One mid-Atlantic retail chain found STI: PopStats' demographic projections to be so dif-ferent from those provided by other demographers that it was concerned about citing the numbers to its management team - fearing they would be perceived as unrealistic. For example, STI: PopStats was the only demographic tool to report that specific areas within a high-growth county were experiencing especially aggressive growth.

This retailer called us to report this dichotomy. Although we are not in the business of matching the estimates of our competitors' demographic products, we were intrigued by this situation and decided to pursue it with first-hand research. After in-depth discussions with county officials and newspaper research, we found that STI: PopStats' numbers were right on target.

BOTTOM LINE: Today this restaurant chain enjoys the rewards of better market insight with STI: PopStats - and the confidence to use the product to pursue new opportunities in targeted high-growth markets.

Accurate Quarterly Estimates Solve Mysterious Flat Growth

A major Eastern retailer had a troubled store with sales that were much lower than ex-pected, based on demographic data that showed the location's population to be growing. In fact, demographic data from two other providers indicated that the entire county was growing aggressively.

The retailer requested an STI: PopStats data set, which showed that although the majority of the county was in fact growing, the population in one area was actually decreasing rapidly. We decided to further research this apparent anomaly. Our first-hand research revealed that a large number of low-income families were moving out of this particular area. Further, a major transit study reported that rider ship was dropping so low several bus routes in the area had been canceled. In fact, the store was located in an isolated neighborhood of declining population within a fast-growing county.

BOTTOM LINE: STI: PopStats accurately identified the reason for declining sales in an isolated area, thereby, saving the retailer the time and expense of costly marketing investments.