What Customer Growth Partners does

Customer Growth Partners (CGP) is a privately-held consulting and research firm founded in 2001 by Craig Johnson and headquartered in Madison, Connecticut. The firm specializes in real-time, field-based retail performance intelligence for institutional investors active in the retail and consumer discretionary sectors. CGP's customer base spans major asset management firms, long-short hedge funds, quantitative-oriented firms, distressed debt investors, private equity firms, and mall developers/REITs, all of whom subscribe for ahead-of-earnings visibility into retailer performance and inflection-point signals that the broader market typically captures only after quarterly reports are released. Around 2010-2011 the firm intentionally discontinued all consulting work for publicly-traded retailers to preserve buy-side independence and avoid exposure to inside information, narrowing its addressable client base in favor of exclusivity.

CGP's commercial product suite comprises three subscription research products: the Retail Growth Vectors Report (issued approximately eight times per year to flag retailers entering inflection points, up or down, in sales and comp performance), the Retail Read Report (quarterly, retailer-by-retailer total sales and comparable store estimates delivered prior to earnings, including drivers and competitive dynamics), and Annual, Holiday and Back-to-School Forecasts (seasonal forecasts conducted annually since 2001 and described by the firm as 'unparalleled in their accuracy'). Underlying these products is a 18-researcher domestic field team plus one researcher in the UK conducting weekly store-level checks across 50+ retail chains at 100+ benchmark mall and off-mall venues, applying a fixed observational protocol that captures 15 quantitative and 10 qualitative metrics per visit plus shopper exit interviews. Observations flow into a proprietary Big Data platform that aggregates thousands of data points quarterly per retailer into quantitative reports.

The business model is B2B subscription-based, priced and sold through direct enterprise relationships with institutional investors; pricing is not publicly disclosed. CGP maintains strong earned-media positioning in CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, New York Times, WWD and Chain Store Age, which functions as top-of-funnel awareness for the largely relationship-driven sales motion. The firm is structured as Customer Growth Partners, LLC, is founder-led, and reports no external institutional investment, parent company, subsidiaries, M&A activity, or known leadership changes.

Name

Customer Growth Partners

Legal name

Customer Growth Partners, LLC

Website

https://customergrowthpartners.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2001

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Customer Growth Partners is a private, Madison, CT–based retail research firm founded in 2001 that delivers subscription field-research intelligence on 50+ U.S. retailers to institutional investors, including asset managers, hedge funds, distressed debt investors, private equity firms, and mall developers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Madison

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Retail Growth Vectors Report: Flagship report identifying retailers entering inflection points in sales and comp store performance, issued approximately 8 times per year
2. Retail Read Report: Quarterly report for each retailer providing Total Sales and Comp estimates at quarter-end prior to earnings, including key performance drivers, emerging threats, competitive dynamics, and selected retail metrics
3. Annual, Holiday and Back-to-School Forecasts: Forecasts conducted since 2001, regarded as highly accurate in predicting future performance during key retail selling periods

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Customer Growth Partners is a private consulting and research firm that provides subscription-based, field-research-driven retail and consumer performance intelligence to institutional investors. An 18-researcher field team tracks over 50 major retailers across 100+ benchmark mall and off-mall venues, feeding a proprietary Big Data platform that produces the Retail Growth Vectors Report, the quarterly Retail Read Report, and Annual/Holiday/Back-to-School Forecasts.

Product overview

Customer Growth Partners is a consulting and research firm that provides a suite of research products for institutional investors in the retail and consumer discretionary sectors. The core offering consists of three main research products: the Retail Growth Vectors Report (identifying retail inflection points, issued ~8x/year), the Retail Read Report (quarterly sales and comp estimates with detailed performance metrics), and Annual/Holiday/Back-to-School Forecasts (seasonal predictions since 2001). These products are supported by a nationwide field team of 18 researchers plus one in the U.K. conducting store checks, and a Big Data platform that generates detailed quantitative reports from thousands of data points quarterly.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Retail Growth Vectors Report Flagship subscription research report that identifies retailers entering inflection points (up or down) in sales and comparable store performance, issued approximately eight times per year. Designed for institutional investors in the retail and consumer discretionary sectors.
• Retail Read Report Quarterly subscription report for each covered retailer providing Total Sales and Comparable Store Sales estimates at quarter-end and prior to earnings. Includes key performance drivers, emerging threats, competitive dynamics, and metrics such as units per transaction, average selling prices, average transaction size, and conversion rates.
• Annual, Holiday and Back-to-School Forecasts Subscription seasonal retail performance forecasts covering annual, holiday, and back-to-school selling periods. Conducted since 2001 and regarded as unparalleled in accuracy for predicting future performance in these key retail periods.

Quantifiable outcome

• Retail Growth Vectors report issued 8 times per year identifying inflection points
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers12 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Emerging players

• Sensor Tower: Provides digital, mobile, and advertising intelligence including e-commerce and app-data analytics. Comparable as an alternative-data provider serving institutional investors, but oriented around digital rather than physical-retail signals.
• Edited: Provides retail-pricing, assortment, and product-availability analytics derived from e-commerce and store data. Comparable as a retail-data provider serving investor and merchandising teams, but with a digital-data orientation versus CGP's field-research approach.
• Bloomberg Second Measure: Tracks consumer spending using anonymized card transaction data, providing same-store sales and consumer trends for investors. Comparable as an alternative-data source on retail comp performance, but uses transactional data rather than field observation.
• Placer.ai: Provides foot-traffic and location analytics using panel data and computer vision. Comparable as an alternative-data source on retail store activity, but replaces manual in-store observation with automated digital signals.
• Earnest Research: Provides alternative-data insights using anonymized credit-card and consumer-panel data, including retail transaction estimates. Comparable as a buy-side-facing alternative-data provider on retail performance, but using passive transaction data rather than field research.

Broad incumbents

• NielsenIQ: Global leader in retail measurement and consumer intelligence, serving CPG and retail manufacturers with point-of-sale and panel data. Comparable in serving investor and retailer clients with retail performance insights, but at vastly greater scale and broader scope.
• Kantar: Global market-research firm offering consumer insights, retail analytics, and brand measurement to CPG, retail, and financial clients. Comparable in providing consumer/retail research used for investment decisions, but at much larger scale and broader scope.
• Circana (IRI + NPD): Formed by the merger of IRI and NPD, Circana provides retail measurement, consumer panel, and point-of-sale data to CPG and retail clients. Comparable as a retail-data provider whose outputs inform investment decisions, but with a far broader portfolio than CGP's field-research focus.

Others

• Bain & Company (Retail Practice): Global management consultancy with a leading retail/consumer practice. Comparable as a noted former client and as a high-end advisor producing retail insights, but CGP explicitly discontinued consulting for retailers to avoid conflicts with Bain-style buy-side research consumers.

Direct peers

• Retail Metrics: Provides retail same-store sales consensus estimates and analytics primarily to institutional investors. Closely comparable to CGP's quarterly comp-estimate product, though its methodology relies on aggregating analyst estimates rather than field-based observation.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Customer Growth Partners