Industry: Online retailer of electrical products
Facts & Figures
HQ: United Kingdom
Distributes: 4.5m units a year
Sales: £1.7bn
Solutions Used
GfK Market Intelligence: Sales Tracking
Using performance to feed into short and long-term planning decisions
AO is a leading online retailer of household appliances and electrical goods in the UK. AO uses GfK’s Market Intelligence service, delivering their own sales data to the retailer panel in exchange for market‑level information provided as weekly and monthly deliverables
The AO team uses the intelligence daily to analyse market opportunities by category to understand market sizes, which categories are emerging, growing, or declining, how the overall market is performing, as well as to forecast future demand for features, products and categories.
The information feeds into the retailer’s long-term planning and key strategic initiatives, helping to create a roadmap for the Group for the next 5 to 10 years. It enables the strategic planning teams to decide what to focus on and when, as well as to evaluate potential in new categories, sectors and markets.
“COVID-19 changed the retail landscape for AO.com, with a huge migration to online buying which has fundamentally changed the way that consumers think about and buy electrical products. We trust GfK’s Market Intelligence as a comprehensive and up-to-date source of category and market insights. We use it in our business for both tactical and strategic decision making, enabling us to move at speed whilst maintaining our market leadership in the UK.”
Alistair Clarke, Head of Strategic Development ao.com
A strong partnership
With a relationship lasting seven years, AO and GfK are in touch on an almost daily basis, sharing insight and data on market trends and performance. AO has access to GfK’s market specialists and a responsive account management team. There are regular planning calls as well as customised reports and webinars that cover tactical and strategic insights as well as historical trends and future forecasts. The core data is also used to create market updates for AO Board Meetings and in their Annual Report.
“Having access to GfK’s Market Intelligence helps us to make good tactical decisions. We want to be certain that we offer the right product assortment with the most desirable features to our customers, and that we’re listing the right products and ranges from manufacturers. We use this insight daily, as well as relying on our strong relationship with GfK experts for additional information like consumer behaviour and market insights. Recently, we have been using GfK’s new platform, gfknewron, which allows us to access market data easily and quickly.”
Ghina Romani, Senior Strategic Markets Analyst ao.com
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