When designing a shelf planner you also want to know what a consumer selects when your product is ‘out of stock’. A different product from the same brand? Or does the consumer select a larger pack? The alternative product a consumer selects says a lot about what is important, for example the brand or contents of the packaging etc

Using implicit measurement we analyse the shopper's selection criteria without having to ask them directly. The result is a customer decision tree (CDT) which indicates the hierarchy used by the consumer when purchasing a product in a category. This is precisely the information product managers and category managers need when planning a shelf layout.