What is sell-through and depletions?

Sell-through is how much product shoppers buy at retail. Depletions are how much distributors sell on to retailers, bars and restaurants.

Products move in steps. A brand ships to a distributor or retailer, which is sell-in or shipments. In drinks, the distributor then sells on to retailers, bars and restaurants, and those sales are called depletions. Finally shoppers buy from the shelf, which is sell-through, usually seen in retailer or scan data.

Each step is a different number on a different delay. Shipments tell you what the trade expects to sell. Depletions tell you what the trade bought. Sell-through tells you what people bought. Retail buyers also watch their own measures: in a real Arcus market report for a skincare brand moving into retail, the four numbers buyers manage to were distribution (ACV), units per location per week against the category, household penetration and repeat.

Why it matters

For drinks and other retail-heavy brands, these are the numbers closest to real demand. Shipments into a warehouse can rise while shelves sit full.

An example

Example (made-up numbers): a summer campaign runs in June. Shipments jump 20% in May as distributors stock up. Depletions rise 8% across June and July. Scan data shows shoppers bought 5% more than the same weeks last year. The 5% is closest to what shoppers did, and whether the campaign caused it needs a regional comparison.

Where it misleads

Judging a campaign on shipments. Stocking up ahead of a promotion looks like demand, and it often shows up as a dip later.

How Arcus handles it

We work with the sales data you have, whether that’s depletions from distributors, retailer data or scan data, line campaigns up with it by week and region, and tell you where it’s too thin to call.

More in our guide: What is first-party data, and what do I do with mine?