Industry research
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) market research
Build a like-for-like view of consumer goods demand by product, buyer, channel, and price tier. Keep unit volume, retail value, and manufacturer revenue separate.
Market definition
Set the boundary before comparing.
A category total can combine very different products and trade values. Set the product taxonomy and point in the value chain before sizing it.
01Product category
Packs, units, kilograms, or litres
Define the product taxonomy, formulation, pack size, and adjacent categories excluded.
02Consumer demand
Households, buyers, purchase occasions, or spend
Specify consumer group, purchase frequency, geography, and retail versus food-service use.
03Channel and price tier
Sell-through, sell-in, or net sales value
Separate grocery, convenience, e-commerce, and food service, including private label.
04Inputs and trade
Commodity volume, import value, or cost
Do not treat agricultural input bills as packaged-goods revenue. Identify the covered commodities.
Decision context
What shapes the opportunity?
Use these lenses to build a market view around the decision, customer, and time horizon that matter to you.
- 01
Volume versus price
Separate organic unit growth, mix, price changes, promotions, and foreign-exchange effects.
- 02
Brand and private label
Compare share and margin by retailer, channel, and price tier instead of relying on a blended category average.
- 03
Supply and input exposure
Map ingredient sourcing, packaging, freight, and commodity sensitivity to the product lines in scope.
Buyer questions
Questions worth resolving.
Use these checks to test whether a report answers your decision or needs a narrower research brief.
- 01
What counts as the product?
Set inclusion rules for ingredients, substitutes, pack formats, and adjacent categories before using a market total.
- 02
Whose sales are counted?
Retail sell-through, manufacturer sell-in, distributor sales, and net revenue can produce very different values.
- 03
What is driving growth?
Ask whether category change comes from units, price, channel mix, product mix, or new household penetration.
Definitions and evidence
Check what the measures represent.
Household spending can test a consumer-demand hypothesis, but the population and product categories must match the brief. Consumer units are a survey concept; they should not be treated as interchangeable with households, individual buyers, or retail outlets.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics: consumer expenditure definitions
Defines consumer units and explains the Interview and Diary surveys used for US expenditure estimates.
US household expenditure data are a demand reference, rather than a global CPG market total. Brand sales, manufacturer revenue, distributor turnover, and retail sell-through require their own reconciliation.
Reference sources checked .
Related analysis
Evidence for your next decision.
Explore the commercial questions behind this research coverage.
- CPG Growth Analysis: Price, Volume, Mix and Retail Sell-Through
Decompose CPG growth using consistent physical units, realised price, product mix, distribution and channel inventory.
Your next question
Start with the category and shopper.
Tell us what you need to compare, where, and for whom. We’ll confirm relevant report coverage or shape a custom study.