NPD Launches Pre-Market Forecasting Service

In the US, retail information firm The NPD Group has introduced a pre-market sales forecasting service, which can be used to assess and improve the sales potential of new and revamped products and services before they are launched.

NPD will also offer a concept testing service to work in conjunction with the forecasting service. The firm's overall approach will deliver a quantitative pre-market sales forecast, including simulation of multiple launch plans, and a source of volume analysis, to help marketers evaluate and maximize product potential and marketing ROI among the target audience, or segments of that population.

The initiative will be led by Jia Guo, who previously served as Customer Research Manager at Amazon Web Services, as a Partner at Lin Consulting (developer of the BASES system), and as Associate Manager at Nielsen. Her background covers all stages of product development.

George Terhanian (pictured), President, Solutions for NPD, comments: 'Through our point-of-sale and consumer databases, we are able to catalogue how hundreds of thousands of new and revamped products perform, after launch, in multiple industries. It's difficult to overstate the value of that one-of-a-kind information; it serves as the ideal check and basis for calibrating, validating and refining our sales forecasts'.

Web site: www.npd.com .