ECON-23-0028 POS Data SSN.pdf

SOURCES SOUGHT:

Aggregated Retail Point-of-Sale/Scanner Transaction Data

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 10, the following Notice is issued for Market Research purposes only. This Notice does not constitute a Request for Proposal or a commitment to issue a Request for Proposal. The United States Census Bureau (USCB) is not soliciting or accepting offers at this time. Information received in response to this notice will not be evaluated or considered by the Government as an offer. The USCB is not responsible for any administrative cost incurred by respondents for answering to this announcement.

TITLE:

DESCRIPTION:

The business goal of this Notice is to determine what small businesses are capable of providing the Aggregated Retail Point-of-Sale/Scanner Transaction Data.

BACKGROUND:

The United States Census Bureau produces several data products for the retail economy. The Economic Census is conducted every five years and captures the most comprehensive store and product-level information of any of our survey instruments. The Census collects data for each company at the store or location level. The results of the Economic Census are also the core of the sampling frame that many of our Economic Surveys are built upon. Our Annual Integrated Economic Survey (AIES) is conducted every year and captures data at the company level and collects national sales, inventories, e-commerce, and expense data for sampled retailers. Our Principal Federal Economic Indicator (PFEI) Programs in the Advanced Monthly Retail Trade Survey and our Monthly Retail Trade Survey are subsamples of the Annual Survey and produce our most timely retail estimates. The information collected in these surveys has a much more limited scope with focus on the national sales figure for both brick and mortar and e-commerce retailers.

The retail economy is a dynamic one that is garnering great attention as it evolves to meet consumer’s changing needs and to adapt to emerging technologies. As a result, there is an increased interest in the Census Bureau’s retail data products. At the same time, however, response rates for our surveys are declining due to respondent burden and increased protection of non-public company records. The 2022-2026 U.S. Census Bureau Strategic Plan makes a commitment to reducing the burden of responding to surveys and leveraging non-traditional data sources.

PURPOSE AND SCOPE:

The objective of this requirement is to acquire third party Aggregated Retail Point-of- Sale/Scanner Transaction Data that is comparable to what retailers would be providing on Census Bureau data collection instruments to produce high quality official statistics. The procurement would allow for a continuous data flow to support the survey life cycles for the Census Bureau’s indicator programs, annual survey programs, and Economic Census program.

In order to make use of third-party data that is comparable to data that would be collected via traditional data collection instruments for retail surveys and the Economic Census, the Census Bureau has the following needs:

• Consistent store-level and product-level data source that covers a wide variety of retailers across geographies, size, and kind of retail business.

• The Monthly Retail Trade Survey needs this data within four weeks of month’s end.

• The product-level data must have detailed characteristics allowing it to be mapped to the North America Product Classification System in order to be used for Economic Census product estimates.

• The data source must be able to provide the retailer-assigned store number for each store location, in order to allow for precise matching against our Economic Census database.

• the data source must provide brick and mortar and e-commerce breakouts for each retailer.

• Historical data for the retailers must be available, in order to perform critical quality checks of the data against Census Bureau data.

• When using a third-party data source, privacy and confidentiality are of utmost concern. We require that our third-party data source provides no information that would allow for the identification of individual purchasers or transactions.

DRAFT REQUIREMENTS:

The USCB has identified the following draft requirements:

The Vendor shall be capable of furnishing availability and cost for supplying Retail Point-of- Sale data to the United States Census Bureau (USCB). The scope of this work is critical to maintaining the USCB’s mission of being the leading provider of quality data about its people and its economy.

The USCB is looking to purchase and integrate alternative data sources available within the industry to reduce respondent burden and survey fatigue as well as reduce survey collection costs for our Principal Federal Economic Indicator (PFEI) programs, Annual Survey Programs, and the Economic Census.

The vendor must be able to provide direct retailer feeds as well as aggregated feeds by the 11th day of the close of the previous calendar month. The vendor shall provide data using the 4-5-4 retail calendar. The Vendor shall provide the expertise on retail point-of-sale data, availability of individual retailer feeds of data, availability of aggregated retail feeds at the state and national levels, transparent methodology, samples of the data requested (retailer feeds and aggregate feeds), example of retailer agreement, and guidance for the tasks listed in the below task area:

Task 1 – Availability to provide Retail Point of Sale (POS) Data The Vendor shall provide capability of providing POS data to the USCB in the following areas:

• Provide expertise and ownership of retail POS commercial datasets for purchase.

o These datasets should provide total brick-and-mortar and e-commerce sales by store location and by product category (i.e., from the dataset, the ability to tabulate total sales of Product X at Store Location Y for Retailer Z should exist) on a weekly and/or monthly basis. Data can be sales for individual retailers or aggregated sales for groupings of retailers specified by USCP. The aggregated sales data need to identify each retailer included but should not contain any information identifying the individual purchaser or individual transactions.

• Availability of retailer data coverage within continental U.S, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico at the NAICS and state levels

• Availability of providing a list of retailers for the following two categories of data:

o Specific retailer feeds of data at the store and/or national levels

Require data historically from 2016 to present o aggregated data for retailers’ groups by USCB by NAICS at the state and national levels Require data historically from 2018 to present

• Data should follow retail 4-5-4 calendar or illustrate methodology of retail calendar in use by the retailer providing the data

• Provide transparent, written methodology on how the data is collected, aggregated, imputed, edited, and masked.

• Provide ability to provide data by the 11th day of the month for the previous month. This is for the aggregate and individual retailer feeds.

• Provide ability to provide store counts historically to 2018.

MARKET RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

The purpose of the market research questions is to allow the USCB to learn more about the best practices and qualified sources that are available for the Aggregated Retail Point-of-Sale/Scanner Transaction Data. Although answers to these questions are optional, the USCB encourages small business contractors to submit responses based on their knowledge and experience with these services in the commercial and Federal marketplace.

1. Does your company have the capability provide individual retail Point-of-Sale data feeds as illustrated in Task 1 above?

2. Does your company have the capability to prepare aggregated Point-of-Sale data sets at the state and national levels? This should include the continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

3. Do your company datasets include total brick-and-mortar and e-commerce sales and units sold by store location and by product category (i.e., from the dataset, the ability to tabulate total sales of Product X at Store Location Y for Retailer Z should exist) on a weekly and/or monthly basis?

4. Does your company have the capability to provide datasets include total brick-and-mortar and e-commerce sales for groupings of retailers specified by USCB on a weekly and/or monthly basis. These aggregations need to identify each retailer but should not contain any information identifying the individual purchaser or individual transactions.

5. Does your company have the capability to provide historical data for the individual retail data feeds and the aggregated datasets back to 2018?

6. Does your company have transparent, written methodology document that clearly explains how the data is collected, aggregated, imputed, edited, and masked?

7. Does your company have the ability to provide the data by the 11th day of the month following the close of the previous month of data?

8. Can your company provide coverage of the retail sector by the retailers in your datasets?

9. Does your company have existing agreements, contracts, or processes in place with retailers to share their data with third parties, such as the Census Bureau?

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:

1. All submissions must include your company Unique Entity ID (UEI) number, Small Business categories by NAICS code 541910, and information about any available Federal contracts/schedules, GWACs, Interagency Agreements, etc. that may be used to acquire your products or services. Submissions must be provided as a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF-compatible attachment.

2. Provide your company’s statement of capabilities in performing program and project management support services.

3. Provide your company’s responses to the market research questions provided above.

Total submission page count is maximum of 6 pages excluding 1-page cover.

Submit your responses via email by 9:00am (EST) on June 01, 2023 to:

Paul Boesch Jason Winings Contracting Officer Contract Specialist Paul.W.Boesch@census.gov Jason.K.Winings@census.gov

The email subject line shall read as: “SSN ECON-23-0028 Aggregated Retail Point-of- Sale/Scanner Transaction Data Response – [Vendor Name]”

DISCLAIMER AND IMPORTANT NOTES

Any organization responding to this notice sold ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the government to determine the organizations qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. The government may contact individual respondents for follow-up exchanges. After a review of the responses received, a solicitation may be published.

CONFIDENTIALITY

No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

mailto:Paul.W.Boesch@census.gov mailto:Jason.K.Winings@census.gov