Syndicated Data: SPINS Vs Circana Vs Nielsen
Syndicated data is third-party retail measurement. Point-of-sale (POS) scan data is pooled from thousands of stores, cleaned, projected to represent a full market, and sold back to the industry as a shared yardstick. In US CPG three providers dominate: SPINS, Circana and Nielsen.
- Syndicated data comes in two kinds. POS scan data shows what sold, where and when. Panel data, collected from households rather than registers, shows who bought, how often and where else they shop. POS shows what happened; panel helps explain why.
- Syndicated data providers primarily differentiate on retailer coverage, product hierarchy, product attribution and calendar. Those four differences are why cross-provider numbers do not reconcile line for line.
- SPINS differentiates with its natural channel coverage, which includes Sprouts and other natural, specialty and organic retailers. Through its partnership with Circana, SPINS delivers natural and conventional coverage pre-harmonized into one view.
- Circana provides conventional multi-outlet breadth through its MULO markets and holds direct reads on retailers like Costco and Kroger.
- Nielsen provides comparably broad conventional coverage through xAOC and holds the direct read on Whole Foods.
- Velocity is not a single metric. It is a family of metrics. Together, they answer one question: how quickly is an item selling where it is actually available (often called "turning on shelf"). The family measures dollar and volume sales relative to distribution: per point of % ACV, per TDP, or per store selling per week.
- Distribution measures like % ACV are constructed metrics from the provider, with specific aggregation and calculation rules. They cannot be freely summed or averaged and require careful application.
- No single feed shows a multi-channel brand its whole business. Most cross-channel brands eventually run two providers, and nearly all designate a primary whose channel totals serve as the foundation.
Chapters
SPINS vs Circana vs Nielsen at a glance
| SPINS | Circana | Nielsen | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | Headquartered in Chicago | IRI and NPD, merged 2022, renamed Circana 2023 | ACNielsen lineage, spun out as NielsenIQ in 2021 |
| Core strength | Natural, organic and specialty with deep product attributes | Conventional multi-outlet breadth | Broad conventional coverage |
| Standard total-US market | SPINS channel views, conventional via Circana | MULO, MULO+, MULO+C | xAOC, xAOC including Convenience |
| Natural channel depth | Deepest: 2,500+ natural stores, $40B+ | Partial, plus the direct Whole Foods read | |
| Conventional breadth | Via Circana partnership | Broad, MULO standard | Broad, xAOC standard |
| Cross-channel view | Natural and conventional pre-harmonized in one view | Conventional hierarchy | Conventional hierarchy |
| Product attributes | Proprietary attribute layer | Standard hierarchy | Standard hierarchy |
| Notable direct reads | Sprouts and other natural chains | Kroger, Costco | Whole Foods |
| Best for | Brands selling across natural and conventional | Conventional grocery, mass and club at scale | Broad conventional, or Whole Foods as a key account |
Frequently asked questions
Third-party retail measurement: point-of-sale scan data pooled from thousands of stores, cleaned, projected to represent a full market, and sold back to the industry as a shared yardstick. Brands and retailers buy the same numbers, which is what makes syndicated data the common language of buyer meetings and category reviews.
POS data is scan data from store registers: what sold, where and when. Panel data comes from recruited households who capture their own purchases, largely by photographing receipts, and is projected to the US population. POS measures stores; panel measures people. The shorthand is that POS shows what happened and panel helps explain why.
Nielsen and Circana jointly operate the National Consumer Panel, around 120,000 US households, so panel is not a differentiator between them the way channel coverage is; they differentiate through the hierarchy and attribution they apply. SPINS also leverages the National Consumer Panel. Numerator runs a separate, independent receipt panel at over a million active US households and is not part of that joint venture.
SPINS specializes in the natural, organic and specialty channel with deep product attribute data, and delivers natural and conventional coverage pre-harmonized in one view, sourcing conventional through a Circana partnership. Circana, formed from the 2022 merger of IRI and NPD, provides conventional multi-outlet measurement through MULO. Nielsen provides comparably broad conventional coverage through xAOC and holds the direct Whole Foods read.
Yes, by lineage. IRI and NPD completed their merger on 1 August 2022 and the combined company rebranded as Circana in March 2023. IRI's retail measurement business, including MULO markets and the Liquid Data platform, continues under the Circana name.
The share of a market's total all commodity volume flowing through stores that sell your product, on a scale of 0 to 100. It weights distribution by store size: 40% ACV means the stores carrying your product account for 40 cents of every retail dollar in that market, not that 40% of stores carry it.
Total distribution points: the sum of % ACV distribution across all of a brand's items in a market, capturing breadth and depth together. A brand with five items each at 40% ACV has 200 TDPs. Unlike % ACV, TDP is not capped at 100.
How fast a product sells where it is available, also called productivity. Velocity is a family of measures rather than one: dollars per point of distribution, dollars per TDP, and units or dollars per store per week all measure it against different denominators.
Volume that would have sold anyway but was purchased under a promotional condition, so the brand funded a discount on sales it already had. It equals promoted volume minus incremental volume, and keeping it small is mostly a question of promotional timing and frequency.
Pick by where you actually sell. Natural and specialty, or a mix of natural and conventional: SPINS. Conventional grocery, mass and club at scale: Circana. Broad conventional, or Whole Foods as a key account: Nielsen.
Because the providers measure different store universes, define markets differently, organize products under different hierarchies, and run different calendars. The same-sounding number is built from different stores, different items and different weeks. The differences are structural, not errors.