Why sell-out proxies still beat perfect POS fantasies

Many teams freeze their reporting roadmap until point-of-sale pipes are flawless. In practice, distributors share partial files, stores rotate hardware, and promo weeks create noisy gaps. We prefer labeling uncertainty over pretending it does not exist.

A workable proxy stack combines shipment confirmations, return memos, and the voluntary shelf checks your field teams already perform. When a banner refuses granular feeds, we document the ceiling and move forward with comparables everyone signs.

The Weekly Sell-Through Signal Pack was born from that compromise: a weekly artifact that is directionally stable even when perfection is years away. Stakeholders get a narrative they can brief, analysts get footnotes they can defend, and nobody promises a precision the data cannot support.