This paper describes a new data set available to academic researchers (at the following website: http://mktsci.pubs.informs.org ). These data are comprised of store sales and consumer panel data for 30 product categories. The store sales data contain 5 years of product sales, pricing, and promotion data for all items sold in 47 U.S. markets. In two U.S. markets, the store level data are supplemented with panel-level purchase data and cover the entire population of stores. Further information is available regarding store characteristics in these markets. We address several potential applications of these data, as well as the access protocol. The data set described in this paper is maintained by IRI. Any fees charged by IRI for the distribution of the data set will be used for the continual maintenance and updating of the data. Scholarships to cover IRI's fees (for those who need it) are available through the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS). Please see the website above for further details.

The authors examine incumbent retailers' reactions to a Wal-Mart entry and the impact of these reactions on the retailers' sales. They compile a unique data set that consists of incumbent supermarkets, drugstores, and mass merchandisers in the vicinity of seven Wal-Mart entries, as well as control stores not exposed to the entries. The data set includes weekly store movement data for 46 product categories before and after each entry and allows the authors to measure reactions and sales outcomes using a before-and-after-with-control-group analysis. They find that, overall, incumbents suffer significant sales losses as a result of a Wal-Mart entry, but there is substantial variation across retail formats, stores, and categories both in incumbent reactions and in their sales outcomes. Moreover, they find that a retailer's sales outcomes are significantly affected by its reactions, and the relationship between reactions and sales outcomes varies across retail formats. These findings provide valuable insights into how retailers in different formats can adjust their marketing mix to mitigate the impact of a Wal-Mart entry.

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