What is SKU Suppression by Circana and Multi Outlet+ Retailers?
Why is Circana removing certain SKUs from the data, and how is it affecting the CMA's brand and brand family sales data?
Circana recently formed partnerships with new retailer chains which hadn't previously been part of Circana's "Multi Outlet” universe but are now included in the "Multi Outlet+" universe. Some of those new retailers stipulated that Circana must "suppress" the SKU-level sales for items which are selling over a certain threshold percentage of their market sales in their chains. An item’s SKU would stop being included in the weekly data extracts we receive from Circana if the item is being suppressed. Most of the items being suppressed thus far are 24pks in the beer category, some of which are exclusive to Costco.
The CMA Cruncher is SKU driven, meaning the Brand and Brand Family-level sales data displayed is simply an aggregation of the SKU sales for all SKUs which roll up into a brand or brand family. This is a problem when one of the SKUs which rolls up into a brand or a brand family is being suppressed and excluded from the data we receive from Circana.
When Circana began suppressing items (mostly 24pks), it became apparent that aggregation at SKU level, while helpful in that it allows us to filter by attributes like style or package size, would not produce accurate brand or brand family totals if a brand or brand family contains a suppressed item.
Once Circana told us they had begun suppressing items, we requested that they add their brand and brand family Dollar Sales and Volume Sales totals to the extracts they deliver to us, because Circana is able to produce brand and brand family level totals which include the data from suppressed items. This allowed us to create new dashboards which use those brand and brand family totals we receive directly from Circana, rather than using our primary method of aggregating SKUs to arrive at brand and brand family totals. This allows us to provide our clients with accurate brand and brand family totals even if suppression has made an item invisible at the SKU level.
Learn about the dashboards that we've added to the CMA to adapt to Circana's SKU suppression here.