Into the trade.
Off the shelf.

Four events. Four different meanings.

A listing means a trade buyer has authorized the product. Sell-in records movement into a defined trade boundary. Retail sell-through records an onward purchase by the end customer. Consumption is the actual use of the drink. These events can occur in different weeks, and some never occur at all.

Always read the source’s definitions. “Depletions” can describe movement from a distributor to retail or another trade account, not household consumption. “Sales” might mean invoiced cases, scanner dollars or the brand’s recognized revenue. A label without a boundary is an invitation to misread the number.

Reconcile inventory before telling a growth story.

For the same product, unit, boundary and period, use this basic check:

Make returns and transfers explicit so they are neither omitted nor counted twice. A retailer receiving 600 cans, selling 240 and losing 12 would finish with 348 more cans than it started with, if those are the only movements. That is a hypothetical reconciliation, not evidence of consumer growth.

Launch load-ins can lift brand shipments ahead of shopper purchases. Destocking can depress shipments even while shoppers keep buying. Neither automatically says the campaign worked or failed. Check the missing part of the chain before prescribing more advertising.

Give velocity a meaningful denominator.

Paid retail velocity can be expressed as paid units per store-week, but the definition matters. State the eligible stores, the weeks, pack conversion and treatment of stockouts. Selling 360 cans across six stores for three complete weeks yields 20 cans per store-week. It does not mean 20 cans per shopper or 20 repeat purchases.

Report both the full distribution opportunity and availability where possible. Dropping every out-of-stock day from a denominator can hide a costly supply problem. Ignoring availability altogether can confuse “could not buy” with “did not want.” A new set of stores also makes a blended average unlike a same-store comparison.

• Entity: one SKU, the brand, or the whole company?
• Channel: which outlets and data coverage?
• Clock: the same weeks, or a sequential comparison?
• Unit: cans, cases, liters, retail dollars, or brand revenue?
• Denominator: stores, distribution points, shoppers, or households?

A current example of mismatched headlines.

Celsius Holdings reported Q2 2026 company revenue up 10.6%, while CELSIUS brand revenue fell 11.7%. Its separate Circana US MULO+ with Convenience RTD-energy measure showed CELSIUS retail dollars down 2% for the 13 weeks ended June 28, 2026. Those are different entities and measurement boundaries.

The same release reported a 16% improvement in dollars per distribution point versus Q1. That sequential measure is not year-over-year fixed-store velocity. These distinctions explain why seemingly conflicting headlines can coexist; they do not isolate a marketing effect. Read the August 6, 2026 release and its definitions.

A successful listing earns an opportunity to sell. Useful measurement shows what happened to that opportunity and which part of the system needs attention.