Skip to content
File Support Ticket
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

What's the Retailer Composition of a Region, State, or Market Geography, or a CRMA?

RMA geographies feature data from a single retailer chain. Other Circana geographies (including CRMAs) sample data from a blend of retailers. Use the links in this article to understand which retailers are being sampled.

Unless a Circana geography has "RMA" in its name, its data is generated by collecting the scan data from a selection of stores belonging to the chains in the geography's footprint that share with Circana. That sample is then multiplied to project sales and distribution for the entire market, state, or region, or "CRMA" geography. Follow the steps below to see which retailers are being sampled for these geography types:

Step 1: Circana's Retailer Share file shows us the share of sales that each chain retailer in a given market is contributing to the sum of multi outlet sales for that entire market, regardless of whether the retailer is reporting their data to Circana or not.  For instance, although Whole Foods doesn't share their data with Circana, it generates a large share of the multi outlet sales in many markets, so Whole Foods is included in this file. Using the Retailer Share file, filter Column J to find the dollar share percentages the retailers which exist in Circana's market, state, region, or CRMA geographies (e.g. 'Atlanta', 'Oregon', 'Northeast', or 'Publix Corp-CRMA').

Step 2: Circana’s Multi Outlet Universe guide shows us which retailers are actually sharing their data with Circana. This guide places a double asterisk (**) next to the names of the retailers that share POS scan data with Circana and are used in the sample for projected geographies. Retailers listed in the file without double asterisks don't share any point-of-sale data with Circana and are chains which Circana only “projects for”, by using sampled data from chains that do.

Note that convenience and liquor retailers are not listed in the Retailer Share File. Use this guide to see which Liquor retailers are being sampled for non-RMA Liquor geographies like 'Colorado - Liquor'. Use this hierarchy file to see which large liquor chains are being included in 'RMA' Liquor geographies like 'Sum of Florida-RMA - Liquor'. Find out more about the retailer composition of convenience geographies here.