ACV, or all commodity volume, measures how much of the market a product is available in, weighted by the size of the stores that carry it. It is based on each store's total sales across all categories, so a large store counts for more than a small one. A product with 80% ACV is sold in stores that together account for 80% of total retail sales in the market being measured.
Every store in a measured market has an annual sales figure across everything it sells. ACV adds up the sales of the stores that carry a given product and divides that by the total sales of all stores in the market. The result is a percentage between zero and 100.
Weighting by store sales is the whole point of the measure. A simple store count treats a small corner store and a large supercenter as equal, even though one may do many times the business of the other. ACV reflects the fact that being on the shelf in the large store puts the product in front of far more shoppers.
Brands usually see ACV in syndicated data from Nielsen or Circana. The reports often show variations as well, such as the share of ACV where the product was on display or on promotion during a given week.
ACV tells a brand how much of its sales story is about availability. Sales can only happen where the product is on the shelf, so a brand with low ACV may have a distribution problem before it has a demand problem.
ACV is also how retailers and brands separate distribution from performance. When sales rise, the first question is whether the product sold better or simply showed up in more stores, and reading ACV next to velocity answers it. Flat sales with rising ACV is a warning sign going into line review, because it means each store is selling less of the product than before.
For growing brands, ACV gains are often celebrated, and the work that follows is proving the new stores can sell. Gaining distribution is the start, and holding on to it depends on velocity.
A frozen food brand expands from a regional footprint into a national mass retailer, and its ACV jumps from 30% to 55% over a year. Dollar sales grow, but only slightly. When the sales team breaks the numbers down, velocity in the new stores is well below the original ones, and sales per point of distribution have fallen. The brand walks into its next line review with a bigger footprint and a harder conversation.
Counting stores instead of weighting them. A brand that says it is in 5,000 doors may still have modest ACV if most of those doors are small, and a brand in fewer, larger stores may reach more of the market. ACV is the measure retailers use, so it is the one a brand should plan around.
ACV stands for all commodity volume. It measures the share of total retail sales in a market that comes from stores carrying a given product.
ACV measures where a product is available to buy. Household penetration measures how many households actually bought it. A product can have high ACV and low penetration if it is widely stocked but few people pick it up.
Higher ACV gives a product more opportunity to sell, and it also raises expectations. If velocity falls as distribution grows, the retailer may decide the product is not earning its space, which can lead to lost facings or lost stores.
ACV is reported by syndicated data providers such as Nielsen and Circana, which track store sales across retail markets. Brands usually access it through a subscription or through a broker or retail partner.
Purchase velocity is how fast a product sells, measured as units sold per store per week. It is the same measure that retailers and brands simply call velocity, and it shows how well a product sells in the stores that already carry it. Because it divides out the number of stores, it lets a brand compare performance fairly across retailers, regions, and time periods.
Syndicated data is market data that a research company collects once and sells to many subscribers. In consumer goods it usually means retail sales data and household panel data from providers such as Nielsen and Circana. It is the shared source of truth that brands, retailers, and brokers use when they talk about category performance.
A line review is the meeting where a retailer decides what it will stock in a category for the coming period. Every item in the category is assessed, some are kept, some are cut, and new items are considered against the ones already on the shelf. For a brand selling through retail it is the single highest-stakes event of the year.
A planogram is the retailer's diagram of a shelf, specifying exactly which products sit where, on which shelf, in what order, and with how many facings each. Store staff set the shelf to match it. It is shortened to POG in most retail conversation.
A facing is one unit of a product visible at the front of the shelf. An item with four facings occupies four units of width at eye level in the planogram, and an item with one facing occupies one. Facings determine how much of the shelf a product owns and, with it, how easily a shopper finds it.
Household penetration is the percentage of households in a market that bought a brand at least once in a given period. It answers how many people are buying rather than how much they are buying.
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