Trade norm

The category shares and penetration typical of full-supply accounts of one trade, used as the norm for that trade's accounts.

DefinitionThe category shares and penetration typical of full-supply accounts of one trade, used as the norm for that trade's accounts.

A trade norm is, per category, the median share of spend and the share of accounts buying the category among full-supply accounts of one trade: builders, plumbers, electricians. It replaces the branch average, which mixes trades and tells a plumber to buy timber. A category is expected of a trade when the trade's norm penetration is above a stated floor, and a gap is computed only for expected categories. See the worked example on five trade accounts.

How it is computed

Among full-supply accounts of one trade, each category's median share of spend and the share of accounts buying it at all.

Example

Builders: timber 32 percent of spend, bought by 97 percent; aggregates 18 percent, bought by 92 percent. Electricians: cable 55 percent; aggregates bought by only 10 percent, so not expected.

Where it goes wrong

The branch average used as the norm. It mixes trades and tells a plumber to buy timber.

Articles that use this term

Wallet share and penetration · Construction and building materials

Category share by trade: plumbers, electricians and builders against their own norm

How a builders' merchant measures each trade account's category basket against the norm for its trade rather than against the branch average: the categories a plumber's account typically buys and at what share, the same for an electrician, a general builder, a roofer, the accounts below their trade's norm in a category they should buy, the value at norm, and why the trade field on the account master is the most valuable column the branch never fills in.

16 Sept 20263 min read Wallet share and penetration · Construction and building materials

Ten questions a builders' merchant managing director asks, and the table that answers each

The ten questions the managing director of a builders' merchant puts to the branch managers, which trade accounts buy below their trade's norm, which accounts were opened and never used, which good payers are stuck at their credit limit, which contractors won projects nearby and have no account, which accounts lapsed against their own cadence, what is category share per branch, which branches have not typed their accounts, which counter customers deserve an account, what is contribution per account after drops and returns, and what changed, each with the table from the ledger, the account master, the credit file and the project data, and the answer to send back.

16 Sept 20263 min read Wallet share and penetration · Construction and building materials

Category share by trade on five accounts: the whole arithmetic on one page

The complete category share by trade calculation on five trade accounts at one branch, small enough to check by hand: each account's spend by category from the ledger, its trade from the master, confirmed or inferred, the trade norm per category from the full-supply accounts of that trade, norm penetration, category share against the norm, the gap per category valued at the account's spend, the untyped account excluded and counted, and the assertion that category spend sums to the ledger, so a reader can reproduce every figure and then run it on their own ledger and account master.

17 Sept 20263 min read How-to guides

The worked examples: every measure on ten rows you can check by hand

A hub for the worked-example pages on this site: each core measure computed in full on a book small enough to check by hand, ten accounts, ten deals, ten invoice lines, five clients, four territories, with every intermediate figure shown and the identity at the end. This page lists them by measure with what each example demonstrates, so a reader can reproduce the arithmetic before running it on their own export.

17 Sept 20268 min read