Client Name

Unilever Pakistan

Faculty Advisor

Mr. Syed Atif Murtaza Qaiser

SBS Thought Leadership Areas

Behavioural Studies

SBS Thought Leadership Area Justification

This report is best categorized under Behavioral Studies, one of the SBS Thought Leadership Areas. The entire project is rooted in the understanding of shopper cognition, decision-making heuristics, impulse behavior, and spatial navigation. Tools such as isovist analysis, visibility graph mapping, and agent-based simulation were employed to decode how customers move, see, and decide within a store environment. These were complemented with surveys and clustering models to uncover underlying behavior patterns across demographic segments.

Aligned SDGs

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Aligned SDGs Justification

This report aligns closely with Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. By helping Unilever reduce retail execution inefficiencies, optimize shelf presence, and align assortment with shopper behavior, the study promotes smarter product placement and reduced wastage through better inventory turnover and shelf productivity. It also supports informed consumer choices by enhancing access to relevant and beneficial skincare options. Additionally, the project indirectly touches on Goal 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, by proposing structural and spatial innovations within existing retail environments to foster sustainable category growth.

NDA

No

Abstract

This project was designed to drive retail execution and category expansion in the modern trade segment with a special emphasis on the skincare category. The project aimed to solve a key visibility and placement issue that was witnessed at Chase Up's Shaheed-e-Millat store, wherein the skincare category with strong consumer relevance was stored in an under-visited basement section—resulting in poor engagement and underperformance. Wider goals involved utilizing the EPOS analytics to analyze market performance, detecting opportunities for growth, and enhancing customer journey planning of Unilever's priority categories such as Laundry, Cleansing, and Skincare. The project had two phases. Phase 1 consisted of a diagnostic analysis applying regional EPOS data over several Chase Up branches. Volume and Value Shares, All Commodity Volume (ACV), Product Category Volume (PCV), Category Performance Index (CPI), Rate of Sale (Velocity), and Sales per Point of Distribution (SPPD) metrics were utilized to detect performance gaps and high-potential SKUs. A quadrant analysis also bifurcated products along profitability and winability axes to identify strategic focus points. Phase 2 moved to field research and behavioral diagnostics at the store level. The project analyzed the influence of layout on shopper flow and product visibility using tools like DepthmapX for space syntax analysis, isovist and visibility graph analysis (VGA), and agent based simulations. Shopper observation, journey mapping, and quantitative survey offered further insights into behavior patterns, shopping missions, and levels of engagement. Survey based clustering segmented shoppers into distinct profiles, allowing for targeted layout and visibility strategies. The most critical finding of the study was that the current location of the skincare section in the basement was both spatially separated and visually unreachable, minimizing its ability to interact with impulse buyers. However, the new ground-floor location was found to be more visible, better connected, and more aligned with consumer flows. Data from simulated footfall and traces of agent movement validated this area as a high-conversion hotspot. Further observations from EPOS data identified Karachi underperformance compared to market size in 1 KG laundry, with visibility gaps for Surf Excel being some of the contributors to weaker CPI. 8 The report suggests permanently moving the skincare category to the planned ground floor zone and switching on secondary points of display at high-footfall convergence points. These low-cost, high-impact interventions have the potential to increase category visibility, off take, and shopper experience. The ELP concludes that combined EPOS analytics and spatial diagnostics represent a replicable model for category development across Unilever's modern trade footprint.

Document Type

Restricted Access

Document Name for Citation

Experiential Learning Project

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Available for download on Friday, June 18, 2027

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