Competition in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry is fierce. With numerous brands competing for consumer attention and dollars, staying ahead of the game is essential for success. With only so much of the consumer shopping dollar to go around, staying on top of your game is a must. Wherever there’s competition, there’s the need to know who’s best. To navigate this competitive landscape effectively, businesses turn to tools like the Byzzer by NIQ, and their Brand Ranking Report, which provides invaluable insights into brand performance within a category. In this article, we will explore the significance of shelf space competition and how the Brand Ranking Report can be a game-changer for businesses striving to excel in the CPG world.

Understanding the Brand Ranking Report

The Brand Ranking report lists all the brands in a category and ranks them by total sales, serving as a comprehensive leaderboard for brands within a specific category. It not only ranks brands by total sales but also delves into various underlying metrics that contribute to sales growth. These metrics include share of category distribution and growth per point of distribution, among others. Understanding how category leaders perform according to those metrics provides a reliable benchmark for your performance. It also points out which brands are poised to rise or fall in the rankings.

How to Read the Brand Ranking Report

The Brand Ranking report is one of the most no-nonsense reports available. It’s a straightforward listing of all brands in the category with the rank based on total sales, sales growth, distribution, distribution growth and velocity (sales per point of distribution). The top 20% of the ranked brands are Best In Class. Importantly, the brand ranking is always assessed across the entire category, mirroring how buyers evaluate performance. Each brand’s performance is broken out by Total Dollars, Dollar Sales Year Ago, % Change in Total Dollars, % of Category Distribution, % Change in Distribution Points, Dollars per Point of Distribution, and Dollars per Point of Distribution % Change. Here’s a breakdown of the key metrics in the report:

• Best in Class: The top 20% ranked brands based on sales, sales growth, and sales per point of distribution.
• Total Dollars: The overall sales volume of each brand in the market for the selected period.
• $ Sales Year Ago: Total sales for the same period a year ago.
• % Change in Total Dollars: Percentage increase or decrease in each brand’s sales volume for the period.
• % of Category Distribution: the percentage of total category distribution captured by the brand. In other words, of all the SKUs in the category available in all of the retailers selling them, the portion that belongs to the brand.
• % Change in Distribution: Percent increase or decrease in each brand’s share of category distribution.
• Dollars per Distribution Point: is your sales per percentage point of the market you represent. If your Dollars per distribution point is $22k that means your sales will be $22M ($22k*100) if you cover 100% of the market and $2.2M ($22k*10) if you cover 10% of the market. This measures sales productivity to equivalize performance without distribution as a factor.
• Dollars per TDP % Change: Percent increase or decrease in each brand’s Dollars per Point of Distribution.
• Units and % Change Year Ago: Increase or decrease in units sold.
• Avg Price and % Change Year Ago: Increase or decrease in average price.
• TDP and % Change Year Ago: Increase or decrease in total distribution points.

What else can you do with all this data?

The Brand Ranking report lets you benchmark your performance to leading brands in the category. It also identifies fast-growing competitors’ ad those whose topline sales mask weakness in other KPIs like distribution. The data can help you home in on what’s holding you back in your brands growth, whether it’s a dominant brand taking an outsized share of category sales, or lagging distribution, or something else entirely.

Dollar per Point of Distribution % Change: A Crucial Metric

While the ranking primarily considers total sales, the Dollar per Point of Distribution % Change is a critical metrics. It isolates a brand’s store-level performance, removing the impact of large swings in distribution. Positive results in this metrics indicate healthy growth, while negative numbers can pinpoint problem areas within a brand’s strategy. See an example of the report below: