Naughty_Dog

http://twitter.com/Naughty_Dog/statuses/11436962650

Interesting, this is good to know.

NPD has always said they've taken Wal-Mart into account with their numbers. Their numbers are their best estimate of 100% of retail, not 80% or whatever that some people seem to believe.

There's a little ambiguity here, room for confusion. I think people here accept that NPD "cover" Walmart. It's been said here that they do (very large) consumer surveys and estimate sales from Walmart based on the answers given by Walmart customers. That certainly would count as "covering", from NPD perspective especially. But saying they "cover" Walmart doesn't mean they necessarily track them directly.

They've always "covered" Wal-mart since they have an estimate for sales at Wal-mart. But this is because Wal-Mart does not give out sales figures, unless this somehow changed recently I don't see it happening.

I'm not sure the way they factor in the statistics, but they can get a ballpark estimate based on typical consumer, what they tend to buy at tracked stores, etc, etc. And overall with sample sizes from other stores with stats you really don't have that much of a margin of error after you get a large enough sample.

Umm... Has anyone said NPD doesn't cover Wal-Mart? It's just that NPD doesn't get data from Wal-Mart and it estimates their sales.

Don't know why people say NPD always covered Wal*Mart/Sams Club, because thats not true.

Walmart has stated in the past they they do not report anything to anyone but certain government reports for obvious reasons.

Wal*Mart is the largest goods distributor in the world, if anything people would report to them... lol

I can not find the resent link on how Wal*Mart corp does not participate in NPD but...

I did find something from 2004 and Macromedia Market Research : Understanding NPD's Point of Sale Data

Although the bulk of the NPD data is raw data sent directly from the participating firms to
NPD, two large firms do not participate in the NPD survey: Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.
Although the two retailers sell significant quantities of software, their lack of participation
in the NPD data collection effort is not as troubling from Macromedia’s perspective for
two reasons: (1) NPD incorporates estimates for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club software
sales into the data set, and (2) the two retailers sell mostly consumer-level software titles
(Macromedia does not concentrate on the retail channel to sell its professional-level
software). Thus, because these firms sell little or no Macromedia software, even if the
estimates were removed from the data set, one is unlikely to see any significant change
in Macromedia sales.

Unless things have changed in recent years, NPD does not cover Wal*Mart/Sams Club

You misread what is written - "two large firms do not participate in the survey" doesn't mean that NPD numbers do not include numbers for Walmart and Sam's Club, just that these numbers are estimates.

In fact, just two lines later after what you bolded it says specifically "NPD incorporates estimates for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club software sales into the data set"

This is what NPD does.

http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=consumer-tracking_s.html

They call it consumer tracking. They essentially asked people to report what they buy at walmart.

(note, NPD tracks everything sold in the US, this is done through estimation. However, NPD does not get direct reports from every retailer. For walmart they estimate sales with a combination of consumer tracking and probably other data sets)

Ya I found this

So Wal*Mart DOES Count in NPD

"NEW YORK, June 27, 2007 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N) and research firm NPD Group announced an agreement on Wednesday in which NPD will provide the world's largest retailer and its Sam's Club unit with consumer tracking data."