Blog · Industry
Which stores carry three of your nine SKUs. Which distributor has stopped listing your new line. Which region has demand and no distribution. From distributor sell-out and retailer data, reconciled to the number you report.
How an FMCG or CPG brand finds the stores that carry the category but not its SKUs from the sell-out files distributors already send: the store-by-SKU grid, the channel-specific range, the valued void list per region and distributor, and the reconciliation to reported sell-out.
16 Sept 20263 min readHow a CPG brand infers out-of-stocks per store per SKU from daily or weekly sell-out data without shelf audits: the SKU's own sales rate at the store, the gap that is too long to be chance, the lost sales valued at that rate, the stores and SKUs where gaps recur, and why the inferred figure is a list for the field team rather than a claim against the retailer.
16 Sept 20263 min readHow a CPG brand measures the uplift from a promotion per retail account from sell-out data: the account's own pre-promo baseline, the lift during, the dip after, the net lift that remains, and the accounts where a promotion moved volume forward rather than adding it, so that trade spend goes where the lift is real.
16 Sept 20262 min readHow an FMCG or CPG brand sets a SKU list per retail channel, measures range penetration per store against it, and avoids the single most common failure in distribution analytics: a void list that expects a convenience store to stock the family multipack.
16 Sept 20263 min readHow a CPG brand reads its retailer chargebacks and deductions from the remittance and deduction files: chargebacks by retailer, by reason code and by distribution centre, the share that is disputable against the brand's own shipment and delivery records, the reasons that recur at one retailer and nowhere else, the cost per case shipped by retailer, and the two conversations, the brand's own logistics and the retailer's compliance team, that the split points to.
16 Sept 20263 min readHow a CPG brand compares what it shipped to each retailer with what the retailer sold through, from the shipment ledger and the sell-out data: the channel inventory implied by the difference, weeks of cover per retailer and per SKU, the retailers where sell-in has run ahead of sell-out for a quarter, the promotions that loaded the channel, and why a strong shipment quarter with rising channel inventory is next quarter's problem.
16 Sept 20262 min readThe ten questions a consumer goods commercial director puts to the sales and trade marketing teams, where are the distribution voids, which stores stopped selling a SKU on a Tuesday, which promotions moved volume and which moved it forward, which retailers are building inventory in the channel, which chargebacks are disputable, what is range penetration by channel, which accounts are under the range norm, what is the weekly gap list per store, what did trade spend buy per net unit, and what changed, each with the table from the sell-out, shipment and deduction files, and the answer to send back.
16 Sept 20263 min readHow CPG brands should choose analytics software: start from the questions, check the data you hold, ask vendors ten questions, avoid the traps.
24 Sept 20264 min readThe complete retailer chargeback split on ten deductions from two retailers, small enough to check by hand: the retailer's reason code mapped to the brand's reason, the join to the shipment and proof-of-delivery records, valid where the records agree, disputable where they contradict, unmatched where no shipment is found, cost per case by retailer, the reason that recurs at one retailer, and the identity that deductions equal the three states and that remittance plus deductions equals invoiced, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own deduction file.
17 Sept 20263 min readThe complete out-of-stock inference on one SKU at one store over thirty days, small enough to check by hand: the SKU's own daily sales rate excluding earlier inferred runs, the probability of a zero-sales run of each length at that rate, the confidence threshold, the run that crosses it and the run that does not, lost units at the rate and lost sales at retail, the missing-file day that is not a zero, and why the same run at a slow-selling SKU would not be inferred, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own sell-out data.
17 Sept 20263 min readThe complete promotional net lift calculation on one SKU at one retail account over sixteen weeks, small enough to check by hand: the eight pre-promotion weeks and their median as the baseline, the two promotion weeks and the gross lift, the four post-promotion weeks and the dip, net lift, trade spend, cost per net unit, the same mechanic at a second account for comparison, and the assertion that the account's weekly sell-out sums to the retailer's total, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own sell-out files.
17 Sept 20262 min readThe ten sales KPIs a consumer goods brand should run on, each with its formula, the export it comes from and what it tells you: distribution and range penetration by channel, distribution voids, sell-in against sell-out, weeks of cover at the retailer, out-of-stocks inferred from sell-out gaps, promotional net lift, trade spend return, retailer chargebacks by reason, OTIF under each retailer's rule, and rate of sale per store. Also the three measures most brands miss, the figures to drop, the identities, and who owns what.
17 Sept 20264 min readThe complete sell-in against sell-out calculation on one SKU at one retailer over thirteen weeks, small enough to check by hand: weekly shipments and weekly sell-out, cumulative each, implied channel inventory from a stated starting figure, the trailing eight-week sell-out rate, weeks of cover per week, the promotion weeks that explain one build and the loading that explains another, the identity that implied inventory never goes negative, and the next-quarter shipment effect, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own files.
17 Sept 20263 min readRetail distribution gap analytics for FMCG and CPG brands.
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