Reference
Market Research Glossary
The vocabulary of a research proposal, defined in plain language, so you can read a methodology section and judge it rather than take it on trust.
In short
What do the terms in a market research proposal actually mean?
Market research proposals in Oman and the wider Gulf are written in a vocabulary that is precise to researchers and opaque to everyone else. Terms like MSL compliance, on-shelf availability, share of shelf, weighted distribution, CAPI, back-check and sequential monadic all have exact meanings, and the difference between two of them frequently decides what a study can and cannot tell you. This glossary defines the terms Quantum Gulf Marketing uses in its own proposals and reports, in plain language, so a buyer can read a methodology section and judge it rather than take it on trust.
Anyone commissioning research is entitled to understand what they are buying. If a proposal uses a term that is not defined here and not explained in the document, that is a fair question to put to the agency that wrote it. The entries below are the working definitions we use, and we will happily walk through any of them before a study is scoped.
- Terms defined
- 38
- Covers
- Retail measurement, sampling, fieldwork, qualitative, testing, pricing
- Includes
- Omani administrative and trade terms
- Written for
- Buyers reading a proposal, not researchers
Glossary
Terms defined.
Ordered roughly as they appear in a research programme, from method through to fieldwork and analysis.
- Mystery shopping
- A research method in which trained researchers visit or contact a business as ordinary customers, follow an agreed scenario, and score what happened against the standard that business has published. It measures delivered service rather than reported service.
- Retail audit
- A physical, in-store measurement of how a product range is distributed and displayed. Auditors record presence, facings, shelf position, price, promotion and out-of-stocks at each outlet in a defined sample.
- Universe census
- A physical count of every outlet of a defined type in a defined geography, each one visited, recorded, geo-tagged and classified, producing a current sampling frame rather than an inherited list.
- Sampling frame
- The list of everything a sample can be drawn from. If the frame does not reflect the market, no amount of statistical care downstream will make the results representative.
- Numeric distribution
- The percentage of outlets in a defined universe that stock a product, counting every outlet equally regardless of its size or turnover.
- Weighted distribution
- Distribution weighted by the importance of each outlet, so a hypermarket counts for more than a small grocery. It answers how much of the buyable market a product reaches.
- Share of shelf
- A brand's facings expressed as a percentage of total category facings. Compared against share of category value, it shows whether a brand is over or under-spaced.
- Share of visibility
- Total brand presence including secondary sitings, gondola ends, chillers and off-shelf displays, not only the facings in the main bay.
- Facing
- One unit of a product visible at the front of a shelf. Facings are counted rather than estimated, because the count is what converts into share of shelf.
- MSL, must stock list
- The set of products an outlet is obliged to carry under its trading agreement. MSL compliance is the proportion of that list actually found on shelf, scored per outlet.
- On-shelf availability, OSA
- Whether a product was physically present and shoppable at the moment of the visit. It is distinct from stock in the back room, which a customer cannot buy.
- Out of stock and voids
- A void is a listing missing entirely from an outlet. An out of stock is a facing that exists but is empty. The two have different causes and different fixes.
- Planogram compliance
- How closely a fixture as actually built matches the layout the brand supplied, scored against that document rather than against an auditor's impression of tidiness.
- Price compliance
- Whether the shelf price read from the ticket matches the recommended price, checked alongside competitor pricing in the same outlet on the same day.
- Promotion compliance
- Whether a promotional mechanic that was paid for actually ran, in that outlet, inside the window it was booked for.
- POSM
- Point of sale material: the printed and physical brand material placed in an outlet. Auditing it asks whether it went up, whether it went up correctly, and whether it stayed.
- Planogram
- The document specifying where each product should sit on a fixture, by shelf level and position. It is the standard a retail audit measures execution against.
- Merchandiser audit
- An independent check on whether a funded merchandising team did the work it reported, comparing the state of the fixture with the visit the merchandiser submitted.
- CAPI
- Computer assisted personal interviewing: face to face interviewing where the interviewer records answers on a device, allowing complex routing and immediate validation.
- CATI
- Computer assisted telephone interviewing: telephone interviewing with the questionnaire presented and recorded on screen.
- Back-check
- Re-contacting a proportion of completed interviews to verify the interview happened and key answers were recorded correctly. Run during fieldwork, it can still fix a problem.
- Screener
- The set of questions that decide whether a respondent qualifies for a study. Most sampling error is screening error, which is why screeners are audited.
- Quota
- A target number of interviews within a defined group, used to make an achieved sample match the structure of the population rather than whoever answered first.
- Weighting
- A statistical adjustment applied after fieldwork so an achieved sample better reflects a known population. It should always be disclosed, along with what was weighted and by how much.
- Significance testing
- The check on whether a difference between two figures is larger than sampling variation would produce by chance. A difference that is not significant should be reported as such.
- Net promoter score, NPS
- A loyalty metric derived from how likely a customer is to recommend a business. Useful as a headline only when diagnostics sit underneath it explaining the number.
- Customer effort
- How much work a customer had to do to reach an outcome. It predicts loyalty more reliably than satisfaction in most service categories.
- In-depth interview, IDI
- A long one to one conversation guided by a researcher, used where a group discussion would distort the answer or where the respondent will not attend a group.
- Focus group
- A moderated discussion among recruited participants, used to understand reasoning, language and reaction. It explains and generates, it does not measure.
- Central location test, CLT
- Product testing where respondents come to a controlled venue, used when preparation, serving temperature or timing must be identical for every participant.
- In-home use test, IHUT
- Product testing where the product is used at home over days or weeks, the only way to observe repeat use, boredom and real handling.
- Sequential monadic
- A test design where each respondent evaluates several variants in rotated order, giving comparison without the bias a fixed sequence would introduce.
- Blind test
- Product testing where brand identity is concealed, so the response measures the product rather than the expectations the brand creates.
- Price benchmarking
- Repeated collection of competitor and market pricing to a single fixed specification, so that prices are genuinely comparable between outlets, markets and waves.
- Wilayat
- An administrative district within an Omani governorate. Buying behaviour and trade structure can differ sharply between neighbouring wilayats, which is why sample design in Oman rarely stops at the governorate.
- Governorate
- The top level administrative division of Oman. There are eleven: Muscat, Musandam, Al Buraimi, Al Batinah North, Al Batinah South, Ad Dhahirah, Ad Dakhiliyah, Ash Sharqiyah North, Ash Sharqiyah South, Al Wusta and Dhofar.
- Traditional trade
- Independent groceries and small outlets, as distinct from organised chains. In most Omani FMCG categories it carries a share large enough that ignoring it distorts the picture.
- Modern trade
- Organised chain retail: hypermarkets, supermarkets and chained convenience, typically operating to a planogram and a central buying structure.
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