CPG Glossary

Average Retail Price (ARP) is the average price shoppers actually paid at the register for a product (or group of products) over a defined period and market. It’s typically calculated as Total Dollar Sales ÷ Total Units Sold.

Average ACV is the average weighted distribution of a product in a market over time. It shows how consistently a product was available across stores.

Buy rate is the average amount a household spends or the number of units they purchase in a given category or brand over a set time period.

A category review is a data-driven assessment of how a product category is performing within a retailer or market.

A decomposition tree is a visual and analytical way to break a big KPI like Dollar Sales into its root causes—unit sales, pricing, distribution, and velocity. The visual is called a “tree” because of the  branching out of the above metrics. Users who are familiar with the concept can quickly see what factors are helping or hurting performance.

Distribution measures quantify the size of an item or brand’s presence in a marketplace over a defined period of time. There are multiple ways to measure distribution.

In CPG, “dollars” (often shown as Dollar Sales) means the total money spent at the register for a product, brand, or category over a defined time and market. It’s the retail sales value, not the count of items sold.

FMCG stands for Fast Moving Consumer Goods and are a subset of CPG products. These products have very high velocities compared to other CPG goods. Examples of FMCG products include soda, bread, and candy bars.

Household penetration is the percentage of households that purchase a category, brand, or product at least once in a given time period.

Inflation is the general increase in the price of goods.

Innovation describes the process of filling unmet consumer needs by developing and launching new products.

Market Share refers to the percentage of total sales in a specific product category or market that is held by a particular brand or company.

The high-point measure of where a product is available during a given period, showing peak distribution weighted by store size.

MULO stands for Multi-Outlet, a retail channel definition used in syndicated CPG data that combines several major brick-and-mortar channels.

The SPINS Natural Expanded Channel tracks sales in natural, organic, and specialty retail stores.

POS (Point of Sale) data is information collected at the retail checkout that records actual product sales transactions.

Price elasticity measures how sensitive consumer demand is to changes in a product’s price.

Product type is a commonly used attribute that helps brands identify granular segments or competitive sets within a category or subcategory.

Product Universes are major collections of products with similar qualities – Natural, Health & Wellness, and Total Product Library.

Promotions are short-term offers and merchandising activities used by CPG brands and retailers to boost product sales, trial, and visibility. They often involve temporary price reductions, coupons, displays, special packs, and shopper incentives.

RIG includes regional supermarket chains, independent grocery stores, and smaller banner stores that are not part of national chains.

A sell story is a data-centric narrative that a brand uses to communicate its performance and value to a retailer.

A measure of a brand’s overall distribution that combines both the breadth and depth of availability. Higher TDPs indicates broader distribution across more items, but it is only meaningful when compared against competitors or category benchmarks. It is not the number of locations selling a product.

The count of items sold. In CPG, “units” usually means the number of packages sold  (e.g., one bottle, one box, one 12‑pack), typically tracked at the UPC/SKU level.

In the CPG world, velocity is the rate at which a product sells over time. It’s often adjusted for distribution so you can compare fairly across brands and retailers.