Survey Methodology
The Return on Reputation Indicator: State of the Retail Industry is based on a large-scale survey conducted among various stakeholder audiences. The survey was conducted between March 4, 2010 and April 13, 2010 by APCO Insight, the opinion research consultancy of APCO Worldwide.
The sample of consumers, community activists and retail employees was extracted from online panels managed by Greenfield Online. These surveys were conducted over APCO Insight's online survey platform, insightpoll.com. The data for consumers was weighted to reflect the population characteristics of the U.S. general population, including gender, age and ethnicity based on the most recent Census data. Retail employee data was weighted to reflect the actual proportion of employees by company as a share of the total retail labor force as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor.
The survey of policy-makers was conducted among a random sample of relevant policy-makers extracted from APCO Insight's global panel derived from Leadership Directories. The survey included a sample of 300 respondents from the policy arena, including: senior legislative staff to members of Congress, senior staff on key federal congressional committees, state legislators, senior staff to state legislators, senior staff at relevant federal agencies, senior staff at relevant state agencies, municipal (city, town, county or parish) elected officials and civil servants at relevant municipal government agencies.
The survey of investors and analysts was conducted among a random sample of buy- and sell-side investors from Dun & Bradstreet lists of relevant financial institutions.
The survey of policy-makers and investors and analysts was conducted using a mixed-mode methodology offering respondents the opportunity to complete the survey either online via APCO's web-based platform, insightpoll.com, or over the telephone administered by trained interviewers from APCO Insight Data Collection Services in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Respondents from each audience were asked to evaluate three randomly-selected companies from a list of 17 retail companies, along with the retail industry as a whole. The results shown on this site are limited to data for the retail industry as a whole. All data, including company-level data, are the exclusive property of APCO Worldwide. Reports of findings for individual companies can be purchased from APCO Worldwide. Click here for more information.
About the Research
APCO Insight, in partnership with the Retail Industry Leaders Association, recently completed a ground-breaking study among nearly 10,000 respondents representing U.S. consumers, community activists, policy-makers, retail employees, and investors and analysts. Learn more.