Most CPG innovation doesn’t fail in the lab. It fails in the gap.

“Seventy-six percent of purchase decisions are made in-store.” It’s one of the most repeated numbers in shopper marketing, and it’s also, by the industry’s own admission, a dangerous one. Shopper marketing consultancy Engage has pointed out that in-store decision rates...

Extended reality, or XR, is the umbrella term for immersive technologies that blend physical and digital environments, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). In retail, XR is used for everything from virtual store testing and...

Whether driven by social media, the economy, or the latest health recommendations, food trends create opportunity and complexity for brands. Trends like high-protein foods, functional beverages, low-sugar products, gut-health ingredients, and clean-label snacks can gain mainstream traction almost overnight. But...

For many years, ecommerce testing and in-store testing lived in separate worlds. Different teams, different tools and approaches, and different metrics. But that model no longer fits with today’s shopper profile. That’s because shoppers now tend to move fluidly between...

Product packaging has become one of the most powerful levers on the grocery shelf. The global market for packaging design services was estimated at about $26.6 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach roughly $35.1 billion by 2032, driven...

If you want proof that AI has moved from a buzzword to a backbone of businesses, just take a look at the numbers. The global AI market was estimated to hit $244 billion in 2025, and U.S. companies alone poured...

The word synthetic sparks mixed reactions. To some, it means fake or artificial, such as synthetic fabrics or artificial flavors. But in many fields, from healthcare to computer vision, synthetic has become synonymous with innovation. We rely on it to...

Pretend you’re a category manager armed with 18 months of point-of-sale data, plus rich shopper demographics and competitive intelligence on how rival brands are performing at the shelf. You know exactly how your category is performing, yet when it comes...

Shelf space is where everything happens in retail merchandising. It’s where consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands compete for attention and online sales. But how do most retailers decide what to stock, and exactly where to place it, for the best...

Staying ahead of changing grocery shopper behavior can feel like trying to catch up with a train that keeps increasing its speed. Most grocers spend months aligning category plans and coordinating resets, only to watch shopping habits morph the moment...