CPG sales: The never-ending challenge of selling more

Executive summary

Despite significant hurdles, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies can break through their sales plateaus with the right strategy, execution and software. Growth doesn’t require a complex strategy. You just need a simple plan with strong in-store execution enabled by a unified system – like TELUS Retail Execution – that integrates data across all channels and empowers teams to work together to achieve their goals.

Many CPG companies will hit a sales plateau in their retail execution – unable to surpass a consistent level of revenue that they’ve achieved across their sales channels. To break through this ceiling, you may explore various growth strategies. The most impactful way to grow is to maximize sales opportunities at the store level, bringing in more revenue by moving larger product volumes and expanding brand reach. 

But in CPG sales, growth is never guaranteed. Tight margins, shifting consumer habits and fierce competition compound to make selling more a serious challenge. However, there is hope for your bottom line – consumers worldwide were expected to spend $3.2 trillion more in 2025 than they did in 2024 on CPG goods – a 6% increase in just one year. 

If you’re ready to grow your sales in the United States, we want to help. In this article we’ll take a closer look at CPG sales in general, the main obstacles that lead to sales stagnation and how your business can overcome those challenges to sell more in store.

What are CPG sales?

CPG sales involve the marketing, distribution and sale of CPG products. These are everyday products that consumers use and replace frequently like food, beverages, cleaning supplies and personal care items. Think products like soda, crackers, cereal, shampoo, dish soap and over-the-counter cold medication. CPG goods tend to be relatively low cost, high volume and high turnover items.

As a result, CPG sales are very competitive and rely on good brand recognition, effective mass-marketing, strategic product placement in store and online and efficient supply chain management to ensure consistent product availability for consumers. To compete, you need to encourage repeat purchases and build up brand loyalty in a marketplace where consumers have many comparable choices and can easily be inspired to buy competitor products.

Why are CPG sales so important?

CPG sales are incredibly important because they power the global economy. Because many CPG products are essential goods, they’re central to consumer spending. The global CPG market size is projected to reach USD 7,799.43 billion by 2033. The CPG market in the United States is expected to reach a revenue of USD $2,082,146.5 million by 2033. A compound annual growth rate of 3.5% is expected of the United States’s CPG market from 2025 to 2033.

The CPG industry also supports millions of jobs across manufacturing, agriculture, retail and transportation. Even in tough economic times, CPG sales are relatively resilient because consumers must continue to purchase basic necessities like food, household cleaners and personal care products. As a result, there is continuous, high-volume demand for CPG items and employment is consistently needed to power the supply chain for manufacturing, distribution, marketing and sales.

CPG sales and the CPG ecosystem

The CPG ecosystem is an interconnected network of manufacturers (brands), suppliers (who provide ingredients, packaging and raw materials), distributors/logistics providers and retailers (supermarkets, ecommerce platforms and convenience stores) who facilitate CPG sales.

CPG sales are heavily impacted by the flow of goods and collaboration across the CPG ecosystem. To optimize CPG sales, your sales channels, consumer behavior trends, supply chain and in-store execution must all work together. To be effective, your CPG sales strategies may need to factor in real-time data, consumer insights and omnichannel experiences. 

How consumer behavior affects CPG sales

Consumer behavior is inextricable from CPG sales because consumers make the purchases. You must constantly keep your finger on the pulse of the consumer and their voice in their ear. Your brand and products need to be discoverable, appealing, distinctive and flexible enough to adapt quickly to meet consumers’ shifting needs and demands. 

What, where and why consumers buy directly impacts sales volume and market share. In a recession, for example, consumers can become much more price sensitive. This can lead to an uptick in private label (store brand), value brand and small-pack-size product purchases as consumers try to save money. Consumer behavior also shapes the shopping landscape. For example, the rise in ecommerce shopping and omnichannel shopping has led CPG companies to invest more heavily in digital promotions and omnichannel strategies.  

Key challenges in CPG sales

The biggest issues in CPG sales typically stem from disconnected data, inefficient retail execution, a lack of customer loyalty and complex sales strategies. 

Disconnected data

Many will manage their retail execution – merchandising, compliance checks and product restocking – without adequately factoring in broader supply chain activities like ordering, delivery, manufacturing and shipping. This disconnect leads to major data blind spots that can negatively impact sales and promotions.

Too many moving parts

It’s common to sell in an omnichannel environment and face fierce competition that makes driving sales quite complex. Your sales teams may struggle to manage disparate channels – from physical stores to online marketplaces and your own websites – leveraging complex strategies for pricing, promotions and inventory management. They also need to maintain brand visibility and relevance across these channels in a time of intense market saturation.

Market and consumer instability

Economic volatility and constantly evolving consumer preferences also pose a big problem for CPG sales. Factors like inflation and rising material costs hit CPG brands hard as they need to raise their own prices to offset costs – but also may have to potentially lower their prices to keep selling to consumers who are increasingly price-sensitive and less loyal. There’s also a growing need to be able to quickly pivot and pump out new products and adjust their supply chains to meet timely consumer demands. 

How to solve key challenges in CPG sales

As you’ve probably gathered, there are many potential challenges when it comes to making and increasing CPG sales. Luckily there’s a key to solving the majority of them – creating synergy or harmony across the CPG ecosystem. If you want to boost your sales, you’ll need to optimize your entire sales process – focusing your attention on consumers within your sales strategy and enhancing in-store experiences.

With so many moving parts to keep track of, the best way to do that is with the right software. You’ll need a unified system that can connect all your channels. Ideally it will be delivered by a strategic partner who understands your processes and empowers your teams to execute efficiently at every store. 

By ensuring every channel has access to a shared, reliable source of data  you’ll enable each cog in your machine to function optimally because all the key players will have access to relevant, actionable insights. This will reduce your blind spots and empower your teams to work together more smoothly towards their common goals.

Imagine this…

You’re running a buy-one-get-one-free promotion. It’s in flight across 10,000 stores. It’s complemented by ads on Meta. Your sales team needs to find answers to the following questions to assess the campaign’s effectiveness:

If your company has a single source of truth – a central hub that integrates data from all channels and processes – then your team members can easily answer these key questions. It will enable them to gather and disseminate all the relevant insights, identify any gaps and generate actionable recommendations to solve any identified problems and even prevent new ones from surfacing.

This ultimately empowers every participant in your value chain to excel at their role. You can ensure operational excellence at every turn, ultimately driving more sales and delivering superior customer experiences.

How to optimize your CPG sales strategy

It’s common to overcomplicate your sales strategies. Time and experience reveal that it’s the execution of the strategy, not the strategy itself, that delivers the best sales results. Less is usually more. 

It’s better to focus on a few key points to measure and improve on in your strategy than to try to execute several actions in store that will not bring enough value to the table. Once the key points are addressed, the impact in sales is inevitable if the strategy is properly formulated and executed.  

You should prioritize a simplified approach to your in-store visits, focusing on driving efficiency, getting better results and gaining more shelf space in the category. Simple strategies are also always easier to change rapidly, without being too disruptive, in order to react to new challenges, seasons, opportunities and campaigns. 

The role of technology in CPG sales

Technology can definitely help your business sell more, but it won’t yield optimal results alone. In order to succeed, you’ll need more than just the software – you’ll need to have the right partner in your corner. The people behind your tools should understand your core processes and be there to enable optimizations.

At TELUS, we take pride in being a strong partner for the largest and most successful CPG organizations in the world. Every client is unique and gets the attention they deserve from our team.

How TELUS Retail Execution can help with your CPG sales

Our retail execution software is the single source of truth, the ultimate data hub, that your organization needs.

It helps companies like yours offer shoppers the right products, in the right place, at the right time. It can optimize your sales, merchandising and delivery operations. It will help you monitor promotional compliance and provide in-store merchandising suggestions. It can empower your field sales teams to operate more efficiently by automating in-store tasks and driving incremental sales with guided selling recommendations.

Key takeaways