Methods and apparatus to determine the effects of trade promotions on competitive products

An apparatus to estimate a target product sales effect in response to a trade promotion, comprising:

• a product reference interface to identify a plurality of competitive products;
• a weighting assignor to calculate a weighting similarity index for each one of the plurality of competitive products based on the target product;
• a target product comparator to select a competitive product subset of the plurality of competitive products, each of the competitive products within the subset having a target weighting similarity index;
• a promotion analysis engine to retrieve point of sale data related to the target product and the competitive product subset;
• and
• a pre-model data generator to calculate a competitive trade index based on the point of sale data related to the competitive product subset, the competitive trade index indicative of the target product sales effect.

An article of manufacture storing machine accessible instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to:

• identify a plurality of competitive products;
• calculate a weighting similarity index for each one of the plurality of competitive products based on the target product;
• select a competitive product subset of the plurality of competitive products, each of the competitive products within the subset having a target similarity index;
• retrieve point of sale (POS) data related to the target product and the competitive product subset;
• calculate a competitive trade index based on sales activity of the competitive product subset, the competitive trade index indicative of the target product sales effect;
• and
• generate a report including the competitive trade index.