The Retail Observatory
For a better understanding of the retail industry in Lebanon

True to its mandate to promote the competitiveness and regional outlook of the retail industry in Lebanon, the Lebanese Franchise Association established a Retail Observatory tasked with the responsibility of providing analytical, informational, and advisory support to retail enterprises and to the retail industry as a whole.

The pressing need for reliable data and information

The Retail Observatory seeks to narrow – and ultimately eliminate – the gaping shortage of qualitative and quantitative studies relating to the retail industry. Indeed, this activity has for long remained patently understudied, both statistically and analytically, despite the fact that consumption spending accounts for no less than 70 percent of Lebanon’s Gross Domestic Product.

The absence of reliable data on the retail industry constitutes a major drawback to policy-makers, prospective investors, and industry stakeholders.

Objective and rationale

The overarching objective of the Retail Observatory’s research endeavor is to produce critically needed metrics and analyses on all aspects of the retail business in Lebanon.

The Retail Observatory contributes to providing the quantitative and analytical basis for:

business action at enterprise level, undertaken by retailers and mall operators
action undertaken at sectoral level by retail industry support associations and retail developers,
policy guidance to decision-makers and regulatory authorities,
guidance to potential investors in the sector, and
decision-making by credit providers.
Retail Activity Indicators

The Retail Observatory launched a statistical project intended to build retail activity indicators. These are directional indicators designed to provide stakeholders with reliable retail industry metrics on the evolution of retail sales.

The indicators are built by drawing on three data sources namely, data provided by major shopping malls; data from payment systems operators; and qualitative micro data derived from retail enterprise surveys. Analyzed conjunctively, retail metrics based on data from these three sources afford an accurate and timely depiction of the retail industry’s performance.

Additionally, the retail enterprise survey includes a part intended to reflect retail business expectations.

The sectoral coverage of the statistical exercise is broad, as indicators apply to six categories of retail in consumer goods that include 36 sub-categories and three categories of consumer services that include 15 sub-categories.

The database

The Retail Observatory’s database includes the statistical basis for the activity indicators, in addition to other resources on regional and international retail facts and trends. Retail industry stakeholders and the business community at large have access to the information and statistical resources of the Retail Observatory’s database. Beneficiaries from access to these resources are prospective investors in the industry; retail ventures; brand owners; consumer credit providers; and policy-makers and regulators.

Advisory services

The Retail Observatory’s advisory capacity covers a range of competencies relating to:

retail concept development,
the preparation of information files that involve extensive research and compilation effort, and
enterprise-specific consulting work on issues pertaining to finance, management, positioning, benchmarking, marketing, branding, strategy development, statistical services, and feasibility studies.
Toward a comprehensive and advanced retail data platform

The Retail Observatory is a venture undertaken for the long haul, with the ultimate objective of developing research capacity and evolving into a leading reference and knowledge center on retail activity in Lebanon.

The sustained effort and sizeable resources needed to attain this objective are justified by the facts that:

The retail industry’s defining features, undercurrents and determinants are distinctly more dynamic than those of any other sector of economic activity, and hence warrant closer observation if trends were to be detected in a timely and methodical manner.
The statistical basis that supports research capacity is designed to rely on advanced methods and applications, and on sustained fieldwork.Such approach enables the compilation of comprehensive time series of descriptor and predictor variables that are indispensable for tracking, analyzing and forecasting trends in retail activity.

LFA has appointed QuantAnalysts as consulting party for the implementation of the Retail Observatory project.