SOW Forrester Research.pdf

Statement of Work for Purchase of Historical Online Retail Pricing Data

Forrester Research

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

BEA provides many economic measurements as part of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The NIPAs are used for a variety of purposes in setting national economic policy and in forecasting and interpreting macroeconomic activity. They include gross domestic product (GDP), which is considered the most useful summary measure of the nation’s production. BEA, as one of the world’s leading statistical agencies, collects source data, conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation methodologies and disseminates statistics to the public. BEA collects source data for specific sectors of the economy.

The emergence of the digital economy has profoundly changed the way consumers acquire goods and services, resulting in greater reliance on online purchases. Because the methods used to construct BEA's estimates of Personal Consumption Expenditures are only able to capture these shifts with long lags, BEA has sought out alternative data sources that would allow us to monitor and adjust our source data for these shifts in a more timely way. BEA seeks to improve these measures by acquiring historical spending data for online retail sales. These measures of household purchases are critical to BEA’s mission to provide accurate estimates that reflect current and emerging trends in the nation’s economy.

2. SCOPE

The objective of this procurement is to obtain historical data for online purchases by households to assess ways that these data may be used to provide annual snapshots of the distribution of merchandise lines that we typically only see in the quinquennial Censuses. Moreover, this spending data will be combined with other data on pricing for these online purchases in order to construct price deflators for purchases that households make online.

3. DELIVERABLES/OUTCOME

The Contractor will:

• Provide a one-year subscription to Forrester Research’s 2020 Online Retail Forecast, North

America, including historical data from 1998 – 2021, in Excel document format.

• Provide access to Forecasting and Retail Analysts via an unlimited number of 30-minute inquiry calls.

4. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The Period of Performance will be 12 months from the date of award.

The Contracting Officer Representative for this call order will be Danit Kanal.