Nielsen has launched its Smart Store tools in Thailand, aiming to help retailers obtain consumer insights.
The research company introduced the tools, especially designed for retailers and manufacturers, both domestically and globally.
Yongyut Ongwattabapat, executive director of Nielsen Thailand, said the new product will help retailers and manufacturers get closer to understanding shoppers' behaviour. Smart Store helps retailers to measure, evaluate and optimise a range of retail concepts on sales and profits.
"It helps measure the effectiveness of point-of-sale merchandise based on consumers' actions," Mr Yongyut said.
The tools are designed to aggressively transform how the industry conducts shopper research by creating a remarkably realistic and immersive simulation of a 3D, 360-degree store environment.
He said Smart Store uses the virtual reality (VR) platform, which will eliminate unnecessary risk of trial-and-error execution.
Sue Temple, executive director of Nielsen Shopper, said the tools have been put together using the latest VR technology, adapting to create unique and fully immersive shopper research and merchandising solutions.
She said building a live environment, creating multiple scenarios and comprehensive analytics about shoppers' experiences will drive affordable research costs for retailers.
Mr Yongyut predicts positive signs for full investment in 2019 because businesses started investing since the fourth quarter last year and 2018 is improving.
He believes positive investment signs this year will encourage consumers to spend more by the end of 2019.
"Though Thailand ranks in the top 20 globally for household debt, we have a hopeful future as the political situation should improve," Mr Yongyut said.
