@Aqua Good to see the retail breakdown for NPD
Didn't expect Amazon to be only half of Best Buy
The reason I ALWAYS say that NPD is 90-95% accurate is because NPD directly tracks point-of-sale information given to them as part of agreements with all of the major retailers:
1) GameStop - 30%
- GameStop / gamestop.com gives NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their website
2) Wal-Mart - 25%
- Wal-Mart / walmart.com + Sam's Club / samsclub.com give NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their websites
3) Target - 15%
- Target / target.com gives NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their website
4) Best Buy - 12%
- Best Buy / bestbuy.com gives NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their website
5) Amazon - 6%
- amazon.com gives NPD their direct POS information for their website
6) Toys R Us - 1%
- Toys R Us / toysrus.com gives NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their website
7) Kmart / Sears - 1%
- Kmart / kmart.com + Sears / sears.com give NPD their direct POS information for all of their USA-based stores + their websites
8) Others - 10%
NPD tracks many other retailers than just the 7 listed ones, but the mere fact that the above seven retailers comprise 90% of the retail market means that, by default, NPD is at least 90% accurate.
The reason I say "90-95%" is because I believe that NPD tracks an extra 5% of the market beyond those 7 retailers, so only 5% of the market is actually estimated.
So whenever websites (like Chartz) claim that NPD is inaccurate or "just an estimate like Chartz," that's based on misinformation. NPD is 90%-95% real data. That's why every major video game company takes NPD data pretty much as fact for the massive sector of the industry it represents (USA physical retail).