Distribution glossary Terms and comparisons

The active customer base is the number of retail outlets that had at least one transaction - an order or a shipment - in the chosen period.

Digital marking is a unique DataMatrix code on a unit of goods and the registration of its movement in a state system; in Uzbekistan that system is called Asl Belgisi.

DMS (Distributor Management System) is a class of systems for managing the movement of goods after they leave the manufacturer: the distributor’s warehouse, shipments to retail outlets, stock balances, settlements with customers and reporting on secondary sales.

MML (Must-Stock List) defines the SKUs required in a retail outlet of a given segment or channel.

Offline-first SFA lets a field team complete an agreed visit workflow when connectivity is unreliable, store visit data on the device and synchronise it when a connection returns.

OOS (Out-of-Stock) is the share of missing items from the same list. Stock in the outlet’s back room does not count as availability on the shelf.

OSA (On-Shelf Availability) is the share of product items from an agreed list that are actually present on the shelf at the moment of the check.

Perfect Store is an approach to work in the retail outlet in which a manufacturer or a distributor describes its own presence standards - assortment, display and planogram, additional points of sale, POSM, price - and regularly assesses every outlet against that list.

SFA (Sales Force Automation) is a class of systems that automates the work of a field sales team: planning routes and visits, taking the order inside the retail outlet, recording the state of the shelf, and computing an employee’s performance from the data of the visit itself.

Strike rate is a field team indicator: the share of visits to retail outlets that ended in a placed order, out of all visits in the period.

Van selling is a sales model in which a seller carries stock in a vehicle, takes the order and hands over the goods during one outlet visit.