Diversity of Products Sold

The indicator assesses the average number of pre-defined types of products (such as different agricultural inputs) sold by the target sellers. It is used in interventions aiming to increase the diversity of the products sold by the targeted sellers.

Collect the following data by conducting individual interviews with the sellers operating in the target area. The best way to identify a maximum number of sellers is to use the "snowball sampling" methodology – ask key informants, such as sellers, suppliers or authorities, whether they know of any potential sellers that may or may not sell the given products. If you know that there is a very large number of sellers in the target area, use a representative sample of these sellers.

RECOMMENDED SURVEY QUESTION (Q) AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS (A)

Q1: What are all the types of [specify the products] that you sell?

A1: It is recommended that you prepare a checklist listing all the products the seller is expected to sell (such as the most essential types of agricultural tools, seeds, etc.) and together with the seller identify which of them are sold.

To determine the indicator's value:

   - calculate how many of the types of product included in the checklist each seller sells

   - sum up the number of types of product sold by all the surveyed sellers

   - divide the result by the number of surveyed sellers

For example:

   - seller A sells 4 types of product, seller B sellers 7 types of product and seller C sells 1 type of product

   - 4 + 7 + 1 = 12

   - 12 divided by 3 sellers = average 4 types of product sold

Disaggregate the data by the shop location (urban / peri-urban / rural / rural and remote), districts (or other geographical division) and other criteria relevant to the focus of your intervention.

1) Keep seasonality in mind – sellers might correctly sell certain products during a certain season only when the demand is highest (for example, selling seeds before the agricultural season starts) and decreasing their stock to (nearly) zero during the off-season. The two main implications of this are that:

    - the data for this indicator needs to be collected at a time when the sellers are expected to sell the desired products – when people need them (e.g. selling seeds before the agricultural season)

    - the endline and baseline data must be collected at the same time of a year, otherwise they may not be comparable

2) If you are interested in whether the sellers stock at least a minimum amount of the desired products, see guidance on the Stock Availability indicator.