As Vietnam’s consumer market grows rapidly and becomes more complex, brands need granular, timely data to uncover real shopper behavior — delivering actionable insights that drive smarter business and marketing strategies.

In response to that need, INTAGE — Japan’s leading market research group with over 60 years of global experience — has launched i-Panel INTAGE: the first personal shopping data collection platform in Vietnam, built to meet the highest data standards of the FMCG industry and modern retail.

What is i-Panel INTAGE?

i-Panel INTAGE is a community of identity-verified Individual Shoppers, selected and trained to record their entire daily shopping behavior through an exclusive mobile application developed by INTAGE.
i-Panel tracks each individual in the family, including both the decision-makers and those who do not directly decide to buy — providing a deep and comprehensive view of actual shopping behavior in each household.
Currently, i-Panel INTAGE includes 6,000 Individual Shoppers spread across 5 key cities in Vietnam: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Da Nang, and Can Tho — representing the urban consumer landscape in Vietnam.

How does i-Panel INTAGE collect shopping data?

One of the outstanding strengths of i-Panel INTAGE is its evidence-based data collection method, which completely eliminates reliance on users’ memory or subjective declarations.

i-Panel INTAGE provides two methods for recording shopping, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all shopping channels:

1. Capture Receipt

For transactions in Modern Trade channels (supermarkets, CVS chains, minimarts, pharmacies, beauty stores…), E-commerce and HORECA (hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries…). Shoppers simply take a photo of the receipt right at the point of purchase and upload it to the app — fast, accurate, and requiring no manual data entry.

2. Scan Product Barcode

For General Trade channels — where there are no printed receipts (traditional markets, grocery stores, street vendors, wet markets…). Shoppers use the app to scan the barcode on the product packaging and take a photo for confirmation. This is currently the only way to collect structured data in Vietnam’s traditional channel — a market that still accounts for a large proportion of daily spending. Thanks to these two methods, i-Panel INTAGE can follow shoppers wherever they buy, not limited by channel type or transaction type.

What channels and categories does i-Panel INTAGE cover?

i-Panel INTAGE is designed with a “no limitation” philosophy — closely following every shopping step of the consumer across the entire commercial ecosystem.

All Channels:

Modern Trade: Supermarkets, CVS, minimarts, pharmacies, beauty stores…
General Trade: Grocery stores, wet markets, street carts, street vendors…
HORECA: Hotels, restaurants, eateries, cafes, bakeries, tea houses…
E-commerce: Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, Tiki and delivery apps (Grab, Be,…)

All Categories:

FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods)
Pharmaceuticals
Out-of-home Food & Beverage (F&B)
Electronics
Fashion & Lifestyle
Entertainments

This is one of the very few platforms in Vietnam capable of providing continuous personal data across all these channels simultaneously — helping brands see the entire consumer spending journey, rather than just a part of it.

How i-Panel INTAGE delivers insights?

With the support of technology and a dedicated team, i-Panel provides daily data updates to an interactive Power BI dashboard — allowing Brand Managers to track and analyze key metrics intuitively and in real-time.

Through the dashboard, users can:

Track the brand’s Shopper profile
Monitor the performance and fluctuations of competitors
Track Shopper behavior across different channels
Evaluate the impact of Marketing campaigns on the brand
Track the growth trends of newly launched products
And many other analyses…

What does i-Panel INTAGE help understand about shoppers?

i-Panel INTAGE provides a 360-degree view of shopping behavior — a multi-dimensional dataset that no traditional survey or retail report can fully provide:

Who are they? (Who) Understand each individual’s profile, needs, and influence throughout the purchase decision journey.
What do they buy? (What) Full visibility of product choices across all categories.
When & Where do they buy? (When & Where) Exact purchase timing and locations across all channels & platforms
How Much do they spend? (How Much) Total spending, trip value, brand-level contribution, and promotion.
How are trends changing? (How) Live shifts in shopper behavior, competitive movement, and emerging trends.

Why do brands choose i-Panel INTAGE?

i-Panel INTAGE brings four distinct competitive advantages that traditional market data sources cannot replace:

1. Individual-level Shopper Data

i-Panel INTAGE tracks each individual shoppers — including both households decision-maker and the non-decision-maker. This allows brands to understand behavior in unprecedented depth, analyzing who actually buys, and how trends change over time.

2. Evidence-based Data

All data comes from actual receipts and barcode scans — not relying on memory, guesswork, or survey declarations. This completely eliminates the most common biases in market research: recall bias, guesswork, and survey inaccuracy.

3. Multi-channel Tracking

i-Panel INTAGE follows shoppers wherever they buy, recording the full spectrum of daily shopping behavior across all channels and categories.

4. Daily Market Visibility

Data is collected and processed continuously, helping brands observe market shifts by the day — instead of having to wait for monthly reports. In a fast-changing market like Vietnam, the speed of acquiring information is a real competitive advantage.

How is i-Panel INTAGE designed to ensure representativeness?

The i-Panel INTAGE dataset is built on a representative group of 6,000 active shoppers (plus 600 backup shoppers) across five key urban cities.

The panel structure is aligned with the General Statistics Office of Vietnam demographic data to ensure national representativeness across key variables: GENDER, AGE GROUP, MARITAL STATUS, PERSONAL INCOME. These quotas help the panel accurately reflect Vietnam’s real urban consumer landscape and avoid bias toward any specific demographic or economic group.

How does i-Panel INTAGE verify shoppers?

The integrity of the data starts with the quality of the panel members themselves. All Shoppers in the i-Panel are selected 100% offline through direct engagement— with no form of online registration — to ensure identity authenticity.

Each Shopper must undergo a rigorous 6-step verification process:

Exclusive QR Code: Each shopper is issued a unique QR code to access the closed application — it cannot be shared or transferred.
Phone Number Verification via Zalo: The phone number is checked against Zalo’s authentication database to ensure it is real, unique, and not registered redundantly.
Device and Location Verification: Checking the device’s IP and cookies to ensure it is a unique device and at the correct registered location.
Mandatory 15-Question Profile Survey: Verifying identity and filtering out unqualified profiles.
Application Usage Training: Each shopper is trained on how to use the app to provide shopping data and to clearly understand the rules and terms of participation.
Periodic Profile Updates Every 3 Months: Ensuring profile information is always accurate, consistent, and truly reflects each shopper’s status over time.

How does i-Panel INTAGE maintain Shopper engagement?

A major challenge for any consumer panel is maintaining a stable participation rate and recording quality over time. i-Panel INTAGE solves this problem by turning the data collection app into an engaging and rewarding experience for its members.

The i-Panel INTAGE app is not just a shopping recording tool — it is designed to be a true lifestyle app, with weekly engagement activities, entertainment features, a points system, and rewards. Together, these elements create a continuous engagement loop, keeping users motivated to participate and entertained— rather than seeing shopping recording as a tedious chore.

How does i-Panel process data?

To ensure quality and speed, i-Panel INTAGE combines advanced technology with human expertise throughout the data processing workflow.

OCR, AI & Automation

Advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology, AI patrol, and automated product mapping systems work together to decode receipts, check data quality, and accelerate processing with very few manual touchpoints. As a result, data is transformed from receipt images into structured datasets at the fastest possible speed.

Human Quality Control

A dedicated QC team continuously monitors abnormal patterns and verifies exceptions — ensuring reliability and accuracy in every data point. The combination of machine speed and human judgment is what guarantees the highest quality.

What is special about i-Panel INTAGE's Analytics?

i-Panel INTAGE’s analytics provide a 360-degree view of Insights through a multi-tiered analytical structure — connecting market size, Shopper behavior, and product performance into an interconnected information system. Instead of just seeing where growth happens, brands can know exactly which levers to pull to capture that growth.

The analytics structure is organized into 5 tiers from broad to detailed:

Tier 1 — Industry: Tracks overall market dynamics: reach, purchase frequency, trip value, and share of wallet.
Tier 2 — Category: Detects growth trends, Shopper profiles, and channel reachability within each category.
Tier 3 — Subcategory/Class: Identifies which segments are gaining market share and driving category growth.
Tier 4 — Brand/Manufacturer: Benchmarks the brand against competitors regarding share, performance drivers, Shopper structure, channel mix, and brand switching.
Tier 5 — SKU: Identifies top products by penetration, value, frequency, basket size, and pricing — revealing which products truly win at the point of sale.

Conclusion: A New Standard for Market Data in Vietnam

i-Panel INTAGE is not merely a measurement tool — it is a living data ecosystem, built with rigorous academic standards, operated by advanced technology, and backed by the over 60-year reputation of Japan’s INTAGE group.

i-Panel INTAGE sets a new standard for the Vietnamese market: personal data, evidence-based, multi-channel, and updated daily.

For Brand Managers, Category Managers, and business leaders seeking the truth about their shoppers, i-Panel INTAGE is the answer tailored specifically for the Vietnamese market, by those who understand this market most deeply.