Wegmans’ Category Data: An Amazing, Under-utilized Asset

Kudos to Wegmans for sharing directly with CPG brands their store-by-store sales data and the associated store-by-store category data. Some retailers provide emerging brands with store-level sales data, yet Wegmans goes above and beyond.

The comprehensive nature of Wegmans’ category data enables CPG brands to:

– Understand the overall category size and sales growth across all Wegmans stores. This is a fantastic barometer to highlight seasonality and future opportunity.

– Recognize their and their competitors’ brand ranking, size, and sales trends across all of Wegmans. Early discovery of the other new kids on the block, and who is gaining/losing traction, strengthens product positioning. It also separates what’s heard via the grapevine into truth and fiction.

– Identify item-specific performance and category themes (ex. size, flavor) that are dominating or growing in the category. Another great, quantitative input to guide product direction and messaging.

– And the kicker, discover at the store-level where their brand is over/under-performing their overall category performance across Wegmans.

This last one is an amazing asset to guide store-level sales and marketing activities. For example, when store-by-store sales data is combined with store-by-store category data, brands can identify if their #1 selling store is truly a top-performer or an under-performing store that benefits from high-volume. The brands that leverage these in-depth insights to increase sales are more effective at deploying and adjusting their sales resources and marketing campaigns (ex. demos, in-store coupons, location-based ad campaigns).