What is Fusion?

• It’s our bespoke analytical platform that offers unrivalled flexibility to the user, putting you in complete control.
• All our data sources feed straight into Fusion, so you can see them all in one place.
• Fusion allows you to effortlessly monitor, compare and interpret complex, real time data in an instant.
• You’re able to fully customise your experience, to make the most informed decisions and stay one step ahead of the competition.

What flexibility do I have when using Fusion?

• Fusion offers a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to displaying and analysing our data, allowing you to look across the industry and its products as a whole or to focus in on one specific genre, publisher, product, territory or retailer, plus everything in between. (Depending on your subscription package)
• You can analyse different data sources in one report, or break them up into individual reports.
• You’ll have the ability to display data in a variety of ways, including tables, line graphs, pie charts, column charts, images, text and more. You use only what you need.
• Easily export to CSV, XLXS, PNG & PDF to share with others who don’t have a Fusion account.

Do I need to install anything on my PC?

• Nope. Fusion runs entirely through any web browser. As soon as we’ve set up your account, you’ll receive an email link to Fusion with your login details and away you go!

What about new features or if we want something Fusion doesn’t have?

• We pride ourselves on working with our clients to deliver the best service that offers you exactly what you need. If you have ideas for any new features, we can work together to develop these and incorporate them into Fusion.
• We also have lots of our own ideas which our development team is always working hard to implement. Please check our website for some of our planned new features, or sign up to receive announcements when new features are launched.

Do you offer training on how to use Fusion?

• Of course. Fusion, just like any software, has so much to offer and therefore we make sure you understand it and get the most out of the tool. We offer in-house and online training via screenshare and are never more than an email or phone call away should you have questions or need help.

Will I be required to create reports in Fusion myself?

• While we walk you through and offer you the keys to Fusion to create your own reports, we at Fancensus can also set up reports for you, ready for whenever you log into your account.

Sales Data:

Exactly what Sales Data do you offer?

• We track all types of sales-related data for all video game products across digital and physical stores, for the whole lifetime of the product from the moment pre-ordering goes live.
• We currently track:
  • Pre-order numbers.
  • Sell-in numbers.
  • Weekly sell-through and stock figures (inc. gsd & gfk).
  • Daily sell-through.
  • Online prices and stock statuses (inc. competitor products).

How many retailers do you monitor?

We monitor:

• >280 retailers for sell-through.
• >80 digital online stores for price monitoring.
• >165 physical online stores for price monitoring.

What territories do you cover / how many countries?

• We cover 44 countries worldwide for sell-through including Export and LATAM.
• We cover 53 countries worldwide for price monitoring including LATAM and Asia.
• We can add other territories at request.

How far back does your data go?

• We have been processing individual retailer Sell Through and Pre Orders for clients since 2006.
• Such data is subject to individual licenses from 3rd party data owners.
• Our price monitoring data goes back to 2017.

What types of retail outlets do you monitor?

• We monitor large specialist retailer chains and small independents, as well as large general retailers and supermarkets.
• We monitor both digital and physical retailers.

What if you are not monitoring a retailer we need?

• For sell-through, we can monitor any new retailer that you have an agreement with.
• For price monitoring we can monitor any new online retailer at request.

When you add a new retailer will you only have data from that point?

• For sell-through we can import historical data if you or the retailer can supply it.
• For price monitoring we can import any historical data that you have tracked internally.

Processing and Use of Sales Data:

How up to date is the data? How often do you collect data?

• Stock and sales data varies depending on product and territory. For the most part it’s collected weekly, however global sales data for new releases is imported daily, as well as comprehensive store-level daily data for certain US retailers.
• Pricing data is collected weekly.
• When and how often we collect data is negotiable and something that we can tailor to your needs.

What process do you use for gathering the data?

• We have a relationship with ChartTrack, gfk and directly with retailers.

What is the process for sorting data?

• Data is sorted automatically by our bespoke system and manually checked by our analytics team.

How can the data be viewed?

• You can view all available data using our bespoke Fusion platform.
• We can incorporate our data into your own internal systems via API or FTP transfers.

Can you incorporate our own data?

• Yes, absolutely. We will provide you with a direct email address to email your files to. Upon receipt, your data will be automatically imported into our system.
• We can also import your back-data/history.

Can I look at competitive products as well as my own?

• Competitor products can be tracked for online price monitoring only.

Digital Visibility Data

What exactly is Digital Visibility Data?

• It is now far easier for a digital product to launch, rather than securing valuable and somewhat limited space in a bricks & mortor retailer.
• This ease has increased the number of film and game digital downloads available from online retailer sites.
• In order to protect the investment in a product, understanding your visibility online is now more crucial than before.
• We track digital download retailers across Europe each week to allow your product discoverability to be monitored against competitive titles. (i.e where products are located within the store.)
• Additionally our data will also provide you with a fast and reliable compliance check for agreed marketing activities within your retailers.

When you say digital store, do you mean a whole store in its entirety?

• This is dependent on the store and our client’s needs. Currently, in most cases we only capture specific areas and ‘rooms’ within a store.
• We always capture the landing page from every store, which includes the main flowcase where there is one. Other areas may vary.
• Exactly what is captured from a store is negotiable and something that we tailor to each individual client.

What exactly is a room & super room?

• A room is a dedicated area on a page for a collection of related products. On the homepage they are usually displayed as rows, with each row containing multiple products based on an activity type such as New Releases, Genre Collections, Brand Collections, Price Collections, Coming Soon etc..  In some stores, clicking on the room heading, e.g. New Releases, will link through to another area of the store, containing all the products within that room.
• Super Rooms are usually a completely separate, standalone page that links from an image, often within a sponsored area, on the retailer’s main homepage. The Super Room page is a dedicated area that contains multiple products in a promotion and is most often themed around a brand, genre or seasonal event. Branded super rooms could also feature soundtracks and other merchandise from the franchise.

What exactly is a flowcase?

• This is a prime promotional spot, most often located at the top of a page, usually consisting of much bigger images then the rest of the box shots. The flowcase usually contains several images and will automatically scroll through them all, one at a time in a loop. Clicking an image in a flowcase will link either to just the product itself or to a Super Room containing multiple products that are in some way related.

How far back does your data go?

• All our digital stores data goes back to mid 2016.

What types of stores do you monitor?

• We monitor subscription based stores such as Virgin, BT TV and freely accessible stores such as GooglePlay, for movies, TV, apps and games.
• We monitor a variety of store formats from iPad, set top boxes, Playstation and Xbox consoles through to web-based and Amazon Fire dongle.

How many stores do you monitor?

• We currently monitor multiple localised versions of 25 top stores across EMEA territories including, iTunes, Amazon, GooglePlay, PSN, XBL, Viaplay, Maxdrome, Chili & more. For a full list please contact us on +44 (0) 1628 483 554 or email info@fancensus.com.

What if you are not monitoring a store we need?

• If there are further stores you require, we are happy to add these at request, however, their inclusion could be dependent on the technical infrastructure of the store, and some stores may take longer to add than others.

When you add a new store will you only have data from that point?

• Yes, unfortunately there’s no way for us to access previous versions of the store to collect product location or image data from an earlier date.

Processing and Use of Digital Visibilty Data:

How up to date is the data? How often do you grab data?

• Data is collected from each store once a week, however we are open to capturing data more often if required. We also capture more frequently during high promotional times such as Black Friday.

What process do you use for gathering the data?

• We have developed a bespoke engine that automatically captures the data at the same time each week. It utilises a blend of capturing HMTL and image recognition.

What is the process for sorting data?

• Our custom-developed internal engine recognises and automatically links captured images and data to the relevant product.
• Any brand new products not yet on our system are automatically set up and other data including studio or publisher, release date and any relevant metadata is automatically added to the product.
• Our team of dedicated experts also check the automated system to confirm everything is correct.

Do we need to inform you of products to start tracking?

• We automatically track all movies but you would need to inform us if there is a specific TV show or app that you would like us to track, as at the moment these are limited to a list of certain specific titles. All you’ll need to do is drop us an email with the name of the product you want us to add to our database and we will start gathering data for it straight away.

Does that mean I can look at competitive products as well as my own?

• Of course. We treat every product the same so you will see the same level of quality tracking across all products in our database.

Is there a set price list?

• At Fancensus we understand every company’s requirements are very different and so we customise a price around your specific needs.

What can influence the price?

• That’s the beauty of using Fancensus, you are able to select the data and features you want included in your subscription.
• This can include the number of data sources, products or territories you want to see, the amount of users who have access to Fusion or whether you want to make use of historical data or other additional features.

Can you analyse & interpret the data for us?

• Yes, absolutely! We offer a full consultancy service if required.
• We can also provide benchmarks and help set KPIs.

Can you create dashboards / reports for us?

• Of course! Our services include the set up of tailored reports to meet your requirements.
• If you’re not exactly sure what you need, we can help with that too!

What if we require something very specific that’s not covered by what you already offer?

• We pride ourselves on being able to develop whatever it is our clients need. We have an in-house development team to fulfil requests that come in from clients.
• We are always happy to implement new ideas whenever possible.