Your Crisp data calendar: What reports to look at and when

Take a fresh approach to reviewing your retail data in the new year by knowing the best reports to pull on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

By the end of 2022, PANOS Brands had saved over 100 hours of manual data-pulling from different retail portals through the Crisp platform. What’s more, they saved over $50,000 in carrying costs by managing inventory to limit over-supply and meet demand.

This is just one example of how customers leverage timely data and actionable insights to keep shelves stocked, promotions on-target, and demonstrated success at hand.

If you have spent time on the Crisp platform, you may already know the power of having retail data at your fingertips. But you also may be wondering where to start, or how to integrate the technology into your day-to-day schedule. Here are our recommendations for a data calendar that can help you prioritize what to track on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis – so you can make most use of this information in your daily operations.

Daily

Bookmark the Crisp platform – and your favorite saved reports – so you can easily access the latest data and insights across retail partners each day.

Inventory

When you have product moving across the country to multiple distribution centers and store locations, it can be difficult to keep tabs on where your stock ends up and if it is being sold with success. With Crisp’s inventory and distribution reports, your team can track which products are in stock, and where – often on a daily basis. Checking your inventory daily can determine which DCs are over or understocked, allowing you to work with your brokers and buyers to proactively replenish supply as needed.

Case study: Click here to read how NotCo uses daily Inventory Reports to work with distributors and avoid critical out-of-stock issues for their plant-powered products.

Problem Solving

Have a specific question or concern? There’s probably a report for that. Crisp dashboards place the power of your very own retail sales data in your hands, and you can easily refer to it for ad-hoc problem solving regarding any issues that come up in the week. Your team can leverage the ability to drill down by region, retailer, product or time period, to uncover key information and develop solutions.

Weekly

Save these short blocks in your week to prepare sales reports, assess merchandising efforts, further review inventory, forecast and more.

Monday

• Recap – Grab a cup of coffee and take some time to recap the prior week’s performance. Review sales reports, measure the effectiveness of merchandising efforts, and ensure all is well with distribution by tracking movement through the supply chain.
  
  
• Share – There is no better way to start the week then by sharing snippets of success in sales, or by painting a picture of performance, to prepare your team for the week ahead. With Crisp, you can share custom, granular sales reports with your team using our Save/Share feature.
  
  
• Identify Voids – A favorite Crisp feature, the Voids Dashboard, allows you to identify where products should be selling, but are not. By checking into voids every Monday, you can prepare to solve for the discrepancies with your distributor and retail partners during the week.
  

Midweek

• Review At-Risk Inventory – Our mission here at Crisp is to reduce global food waste with the power of better data. As part of the Crisp platform, we are proud to offer visibility into your inventory throughout the supply chain, with the added benefit to track at-risk inventory before it expires.
  
  For example, Crisp includes a Spoilage Risk Dashboard for UNFI suppliers that details how much product – by individual SKU –  is at risk in each distribution center by displaying weeks of supply on hand.
  
  By checking your perishable inventory every week, you can identify out-of-stocks and ensure that fresh food is being delivered to locations where it will quickly be sold with success – rather than shipping to stores where it will be overstocked and go to waste. 
  
  We encourage our customers to make the most of these features, as it not only benefits communities as whole, but will help to increase profits, of course!

Friday

• Compare – Happy Friday! Before wrapping up the week, we recommend comparing your distributor shipments with retailer shipments. With this holistic view, your team may better identify not only what is in stock or being shipped from distribution centers, but to which stores and retailers. You may even identify the new stores carrying your products that week.
  
  Case study: Read about how Rebel Green keeps regular tabs on their accounts to serve customers and win long-term business.
  
  
• Review – Take a bit of time before heading into the weekend to review the latest week’s trends in sales and velocity. What insights can your team gather about performance? Enjoy a glance at your wins for the week, and identify areas that you can work on after some rest and recuperation.

Monthly

At the end of the month, these reports will give an overview of your efforts and performance. After adopting the Crisp platform and putting your data to work, the daily and weekly tasks will amount to exciting progress month-by-month. 

Bi-Monthly

Twice a month is an ideal frequency for tracking the effectiveness of your promotions. Yes, you absolutely can and should do this with Crisp! To measure how and if your trade dollars are being spent with success, simply correlate sales and velocity reports to set promotional periods. 

Looking to have an extra edge, with more campaign and in-store demo tracking capabilities? Crisp has partnered with Promomash to offer an integration that feeds daily sales, shipment and other customer data directly into the Promomash portal. With Promomash, you can plan, staff, execute and track promotions or field marketing campaigns to better scale your efforts across the country. 

End of Month

• Review YoY Sales, Velocity and Distribution – Preparing for board meetings, buyer presentations, and company reports can be made much less stressful when you have access to clear, concise sales data that demonstrates success and progress. By pulling YoY Sales, Velocity and Distribution reports at the end of each month, you will have compelling data to show how products are selling and where; how much waste you are reducing; and transparency about how distributors are working to move your inventory. This will also help inform discussions about new product launches, reduction of SKUs, or where to focus your expansion efforts for the next month. 
  
  Case study: With over 100 products, Katz Gluten Free uses Crisp to inform marketing, product assortments, and product innovation.
  
  
• Develop Reports for Sales Teams and Brokers – Measuring the impact of your sales team and brokers is simply made easier with Crisp. Sharing reports with the team will help you track progress, proactively set priorities for brokers, and compensate them based on performance. Doing this once a month will drive continued momentum for all parties involved!

As-Needed

• Manage New and Old Products – After discontinuing SKUs and going to market with new products, you can use Crisp to track the sell-down of your old stock and the rollout of the new items. Going to market with new products involves a level of risk and expense, so the more often you use data to track sales and inventory, the more you can ensure a successful launch.
  
  
• Build a Data-Driven Sales Story – With all the capabilities of Crisp at your fingertips, it becomes easier and clearer to achieve your CPG’s business goals. By including proven data into your retail buyer meetings, internal discussions, or investor presentations, Crisp data can give you a valuable edge to grow your business with demonstrated success.

Ready to get started? Head over to gocrisp.com/book-demo to see how Crisp can put your data to work for you!