The CPG Operations KPI Dashboard: What to Track at Each Stage

A pre-launch to $2M brand should focus on: sell-through velocity (units per SKU per week), DTC and Amazon contribution margin, cash runway (months of operating cash), and damage/return rate. Add fill rate and forecast accuracy as wholesale volume grows above $1M. The point at this stage is establishing the discipline of measuring and acting on numbers — sophistication comes with scale. A weekly review of 4-6 metrics on a shared spreadsheet is more valuable than a 30-metric dashboard nobody looks at.

Fill rate expectations depend on the retailer. Independent retail typically accepts 90-95% fill; regional chains expect 95-98%; national retailers (Target, Walmart, Kroger) increasingly require 97-99%+. Below the retailer's expectation, chargebacks accrue and category buyer relationships strain. Above 99%, you are typically carrying excess safety stock that ties up working capital. Match target fill rate to the retailer's scorecard requirement, then tune inventory strategy to hit it consistently rather than aspirationally.

OTIF (On-Time In-Full) measures the percentage of shipments arriving at the retailer's DC within the appointed window at the full quantity ordered. Formula: (Shipments on-time AND in-full) ÷ Total Shipments. Walmart currently charges 3% of shipment value for late and 3% for short (up to 6% for both). Target and Kroger have similar programs. Track OTIF weekly per retailer, with root-cause coding for each failure (3PL late, carrier late, short shipment due to inventory, ASN error). Prevention starts with production planning that maintains retailer-specific safety stock, automated ASN generation, and 3PL SLAs on on-window carrier pickup.

Inventory turns = COGS ÷ Average Inventory Value. For scaling CPG brands, 4-8 turns annually is typical. Higher turns (10-15) indicate lean inventory management — great for cash but risks stockout. Lower turns (2-3) tie up working capital and expose to obsolescence, particularly for code-dated products. Turns should be tracked per SKU, not just blended: your top SKUs might turn 12 times while your tail SKUs turn 2. That mix is normal; blended is not diagnostic. Match turns targets to lead-time realities — long lead-time products naturally turn slower.

Cash Conversion Cycle = Days Inventory Outstanding + Days Sales Outstanding − Days Payable Outstanding. For scaling CPG brands, 90-180 days is typical. Below 90 days is aggressive and often means very short lead times or very fast receivables. Above 180 days indicates cash pressure that will require financing (line of credit, factoring, revenue-based financing) to scale. The three levers: reduce inventory days (better forecasting, shorter lead times, smaller MOQs), reduce receivables days (faster invoicing, credit management, retailer terms), extend payables days (negotiated terms with suppliers). Covered in our <a href="/guides/cpg-working-capital-playbook">CPG Working Capital Playbook</a>.

Weekly for operational metrics (fill rate, OTIF, days of supply, stockout rate, damage rate). Monthly for financial metrics (gross margin, contribution margin, deductions %, cash conversion cycle) and demand metrics (forecast accuracy, channel mix). Quarterly for strategic reviews (KPI evolution as business grows, retailer scorecards, competitive velocity). The cadence should match the decision frequency — weekly metrics that never lead to weekly action are noise. Match cadence to when the metric can actually change your behavior.

For brands under $5M: a well-structured Google Sheet or Airtable, refreshed manually from Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, QuickBooks, and the 3PL portal. Cost: near zero. For $5-15M: add a demand planning tool (Cogsy, Streamline, Netstock — $200-1,000/month) and a deduction management tool (PromoMash or manual disciplined tracking). For $15M+: ERP-integrated planning (NetSuite Advanced Inventory, Cin7 Omni, Acumatica — $2,000+/month) with automated data pipelines. Tool choice matters less than discipline: a $20M brand running well-executed spreadsheets often outperforms a $10M brand with an enterprise ERP nobody uses.

ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) is Amazon ad spend divided by sales attributed to the ad — the direct return metric on your ad spend. TACOS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) is Amazon ad spend divided by total Amazon sales, including organic sales your ad activity supports. TACOS matters because it reflects the true cost of your Amazon presence including the organic sales lift ads produce. Scaling brands typically target TACOS in the 15-25% range; TACOS above 30% signals ad dependency (organic will collapse if ads pause); TACOS under 10% signals either strong organic momentum or under-investment in growth. Track both metrics; they tell different stories.