Total Distribution Points (TDP), Explained

Total Distribution Points (TDP) is the single number a CPG analyst uses to summarize a brand's entire distribution footprint at once: the sum of every SKU's %ACV distribution, added up across the whole brand. Picture a snack brand carrying one SKU at 60% %ACV in Sprouts, good for 60 TDP; authorize three more flavors into those same doors and it climbs to roughly 180 TDP, with the same store count and the same brand-level ACV. The TDP definition is easy to state and easy to get wrong, and that gap, between the one-line formula and what the number actually tells you, is what this guide is about.

This guide covers what TDP is, the formula with a worked example, how it differs from %ACV and from a raw count of items carried, why analysts call it the "master" distribution metric, and the one discipline that keeps it honest: decomposing a TDP move before you report it. The examples run on harmonized syndicated data, the same SPINS and POS feeds a brand analyst works from every week.

Total Distribution Points, defined

Distribution, measured properly, is never just "are we on the shelf." It is "how much of the shelf is ours." That distinction is the whole reason TDP exists. A brand whose four SKUs are each distributed at roughly 60% %ACV carries about 240 TDP. A brand selling a single SKU at 60% %ACV carries 60 TDP. Same per-SKU reach, very different depth of presence, and TDP catches both at once.

Add a second SKU to every door you already hold and your store count hasn't moved and your brand-level ACV hasn't moved, but your shelf presence genuinely grew. TDP is the metric that notices. It is also where the phrase "points of distribution" comes from: each SKU's %ACV is one weighted point of distribution, and TDP is the running total of those points across a brand's catalog. Counting doors alone would never show the gain; TDP does.

The TDP formula: sum of %ACV across items

The formula is the whole thing, and it fits on one line:

TDP = the sum of each SKU's %ACV distribution, added up across every item the brand sells.

Compute every SKU's own %ACV distribution, then add them up. Here it is worked across a five-SKU natural snack brand, with each SKU's %ACV pulled from the same panel:

TDP = 72 + 48 + 25 + 11 + 4 = 160. The broadest SKU sets the brand's own %ACV (here 72%, the stores carrying at least one item), and every additional SKU layers its own weighted reach on top of that base.

Two parts of this calculation are easy to botch. First, each SKU's %ACV is already ACV-weighted (big stores count more), so you add the SKU-level numbers, never average them. Averaging these five would hand you 32%, which is not TDP and means nothing. Second, don't take the brand-level %ACV and multiply it by a raw count of SKUs: the brand's 72% already lives inside SKU 1's number, so multiplying it back in double-counts. TDP is always built from the item-level %ACVs, summed. (Decomposing TDP in SPINS walks the same arithmetic against a live extract.)

TDP vs. %ACV vs. items carried

TDP is often confused with its two components, because all three are loosely called "distribution." They answer different questions, and a buyer conversation goes sideways fast when they get mixed up. Here is how they line up:

The rule for which to grab is straightforward. Use %ACV when the question is "are we getting onto shelves" across a market. Use a raw SKU count when you just want a fast, rough read on assortment. Use TDP when breadth and depth are the same question: line extensions, slot expansion, new pack sizes going into doors you already hold. A brand that goes from 60% ACV with one SKU to 60% ACV with three SKUs has tripled its TDP without touching ACV, and a pure %ACV report would show that nothing happened.

Why TDP is the "master" distribution metric

Most distribution metrics move on exactly one lever. Store count moves when you win doors. %ACV moves when you win weighted doors. A SKU count moves when assortment changes. TDP is the only single number that moves when either lever moves, which is what earns it the "master" label. It collapses "how many weighted doors" and "how deep per door" into one figure you can put on a trend line and compare against a category leader.

That single-number quality is exactly why it is useful for benchmarking. If your brand sits at 120 TDP and the category leader is at 280 TDP in the same retailer, the gap is mostly assortment depth, not breadth. That is a clean argument for a line-extension review. TDP also sits one rung above share of shelf and feeds directly into distribution optimization: share of shelf tells you how much facing you hold in a category, while TDP tells you how many weighted points of distribution you have earned to get there.

The flip side of one number doing the work of three is that one number can hide which lever actually moved.

Reading TDP trends without fooling yourself

A brand can grow TDP three different ways, and the report puts the same number on all three. It can add new doors (ACV up, SKUs-per-door flat), a genuine breadth win. It can add SKUs to existing doors (ACV flat, SKUs-per-door up), an assortment win. Or it can trade small doors for large ones (ACV up on mix, SKUs-per-door flat), a quality-of-distribution shift. Three different commercial stories, one identical TDP gain. So always decompose before you report: ACV change versus SKUs-per-door change.

Here is a natural snack brand's trajectory at Sprouts across four quarters, with TDP broken back into its two drivers:

After Q2 the distribution story is almost entirely SKUs per door. ACV barely budges, 62% to 63%, while TDP climbs from 112 to 158. A brand tracking ACV alone would write "growth stalled" in the quarterly notes. TDP shows what actually happened: the brand deepened its presence in the doors it already had, which is the right move once breadth nears its ceiling. (The TDP here equals brand %ACV times the ACV-weighted average SKUs per carrying store. That identity only holds when the average is ACV-weighted, not a plain per-store count.)

One more trap: don't compare raw TDP across categories. Cereal and bars support far more SKUs per brand per store than single-serve beverages, so a 240 TDP in one category and a 90 TDP in another aren't on the same scale. Normalize for category-typical assortment first, or the comparison is noise. The same caution applies across channels, since each channel definition uses a different denominator underneath the %ACV.

A worked example on harmonized data

Where TDP earns its keep for a brand analyst is building the case for a new SKU authorization at doors you already hold. The move runs in three reads, all of which live in the same syndicated dataset. First, check the TDP gap to the category leader. A wide gap that is mostly depth, not breadth, is a line-extension argument. Second, find the single-SKU outliers: if 70% of carrying stores hold two or more SKUs and the other 30% still carry one, those stores are the obvious expansion target, because the brand is already authorized there. Third, look at how the second SKU sells against the first in stores that carry both.

A wellness brand ran exactly this play with a national natural chain. 68% of stores carried the original SKU at about $38 per store per week. The 22% of stores that also carried a new flavor averaged $51 per store per week on the original SKU. The extra facing was lifting both items, not splitting demand. That single, defensible data point won the chain-wide rollout of the second SKU. It is also the kind of read that a clean promotion-performance and distribution view makes a one-glance answer instead of a week of pivoting.

Doing this in Scout: TDP shows up as a column next to its components (%ACV, average SKUs per carrying store, and per-store velocity) on every brand and retailer cut pulled from your extracts. The decomposition sits in the default view, so "TDP up 14%" is one glance from "did we add doors or add SKUs at the doors we had." For the expansion pitch, the store-level view segments carrying stores by SKU count and compares velocity between one-SKU and two-SKU doors directly, the comparison that makes the argument to a buyer. For the deeper methodology, including the velocity-per-SKU efficiency check, see What is TDP and the velocity-vs-share-vs-TDP decision tree.