The use of supermarket scanner data in the Dutch CPI

In January 2010 Statistics Netherlands has introduced a new method for computing price indexes based on scanner data in the CPI. At the same time the number of data providers was expanded from one supermarket chain to six chains. This paper describes the new method, including the index number formulae, and the scanner data used. Some results are also presented and compared with index numbers computed using a recently proposed ‘benchmark’ method.