Periegesis (Περιήγησις) is the ancient Greek word for a guided survey — a leading around. Pausanias used it for his famous Description of Greece, the most detailed survey of the ancient world. We named the service after it because that is what it does: a guided, first-hand survey of the UK retail market, delivered to your desk every week.
Sample report — 67 slides
See what a weekly trade pack looks like
Why this exists
Category teams, trading directors, and marketing leads need to know what competitors are doing this week, not last quarter. What deal mechanics are running, what new products have landed, what the entrance looks like, what the promotional signage says.
Most competitive intelligence is second-hand, delayed, or filtered through someone else's priorities. Periegesis is first-hand, weekly, and photographed. Every retailer walked by the same pair of eyes, every observation written in the same voice, every week.
What each report contains
Four sections, delivered as a single trade pack every week.
Weekly update
Lead campaigns, lead events, lead deals, and new product launches across all nine retailers. One table, one glance, the entire competitive landscape.
Preamble
A written analysis per retailer: what they led with, how the store traded, what worked, what did not. Steve's eye, Steve's voice, every week.
In-store photography
Retailer-by-retailer image sets. Entrance theatre, aisle execution, promotional displays, SEL pricing, new product facings. Hundreds of images per week.
AI-powered analysis
Every image analysed by Cartwright, our retail AI. Category classification, brand detection, pricing intelligence, and merchandising scoring — layered on top of Steve's editorial.
At least nine retailers, every week
The core nine fascias visited consistently, plus convenience formats and additional retailers as the market moves. Trends surface because the baseline holds.
Aldi
Specialbuys, branded partnerships, value messaging, fresh produce execution.
Asda
Rollback mechanics, George non-food, outdoor living events, value positioning.
Co-op
Member Price mechanics, Irresistible range, local community positioning, BWS authority.
Lidl
Pick of the Week, middle aisle, bakery execution, value-led fresh.
M&S
Dine In mechanics, Remarksable Value, bakery theatre, Percy Pig, NPD velocity.
Morrisons
Market Street, More Card, price match mechanics, in-store bakery and counters.
Sainsbury's
Nectar Prices, Aldi Price Match, Tu clothing events, seasonal event execution.
Tesco
Clubcard Prices, Everyday Low Prices, F&F events, Finest NPD, digital screens.
Waitrose
No.1 range, seasonal ranging, wine authority, premium fresh, food-to-go.
Plus convenience formats — Sainsbury's Local, Tesco Express and more — visited on rotation. Variety stores such as B&M also featured on request. Taken by experts, actionable insight for your business.
Backed by a 17-year archive
Every weekly report sits on top of a longitudinal image archive: millions of photographs across hundreds of retailers. When something changes, we can show you what it looked like before.
57 seasonal events
Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Back to School, Summer — every major trading event tracked across multiple retailers and years.
Year-on-year comparison
How did Tesco's Christmas entrance look in 2023 versus 2024 versus 2025? The archive answers in seconds.
Available on request
Periegesis clients can request archive deep-dives on any retailer, event, or category. Bespoke analysis, not a self-service database.
What clients use it for
Different teams pull different value from the same pack. That is the point.
Trading teams
React faster to competitor moves
See a competitor's new deal mechanic the week it launches, not the week after. Adjust ranging, pricing, or promotional plans in real time.
Category managers
Benchmark your category execution
How does your bakery, your BWS, your chilled look against nine competitors? Every week, with photographs.
Marketing
Track campaign execution at shelf
Is your NPD landing? Is the POS executing? Is the entrance theatre telling the story you intended? See it as the customer sees it.
Board and exec
A weekly pulse on the market
One-page preamble, one summary table. The competitive landscape in five minutes, every Monday morning.
The technology behind the analysis
Every image passes through Cartwright, our proprietary retail AI. Human editorial plus machine intelligence.
Millions of images
A longitudinal archive spanning 17 years and hundreds of retailers. Context that no single visit can provide.
A suite of production models
Category classification, seasonal detection, product recognition, text extraction, share of shelf, and privacy compliance — all running on every image.
Pricing intelligence
210,000+ pricing observations across 53 events. Shelf-edge label detection, deal mechanic parsing, and cross-retailer price comparison.
The investment
Retail intelligence at a fraction of what an in-house team would cost to produce. Choose the cadence that fits.
From £5,000 per month
Available on weekly, monthly, or quarterly cadence. Scope scales with category focus and bespoke requirements.
- Trade pack covering at least nine retailers plus convenience
- Retailer-by-retailer preamble with editorial analysis
- Full in-store photography sets, grouped by retailer
- AI-powered image analysis and pricing intelligence
- Access to the client image library with search and filtering
- Archive access — bespoke deep-dives into 17 years of retail imagery on request
- Regular calls with Steve to discuss trends and findings
- Distributed to a bespoke audience within your organisation
- Bespoke deep-dives on request — seasonal events, NPD launches, category resets
"Less than the cost of one junior analyst — for weekly intelligence that would take an in-house team of five to produce. One competitive insight acted on pays for a year of Periegesis."
Talk to Steve
30-minute call to walk through a sample report. No commitment.
Or reach out directly at [email protected].