The Hidden Costs of Trade Spend Blind Spots: What One Brand’s $10M Overspend Can Teach You
Meta Description: Discover how one CPG brand uncovered $10M in trade spend overspend—and how you can identify and eliminate costly non-working trade to protect profitability and drive growth.
Let’s talk numbers. How much could trade spend blind spots really be costing you?
For one $100 million CPG brand we recently onboarded at TrewUp, the answer was $10 million.
They had a trade spend rate of 35%, well above their target budget of 25%. That overspend wasn’t just a budget issue, it was a business-threatening problem. Leadership knew something had to change. Fast.
So they came to us.
Is Your Trade Spend in the Danger Zone?
Before we get into how this brand turned things around, here’s a quick exercise:
What’s your gross revenue?
What’s your total in trade deductions?
Divide that trade deduction amount by your gross revenue to calculate your trade spend rate.
Now ask yourself this: How much of that trade spend is working trade versus non-working trade?
Working trade includes promotions and events that help drive velocity and get products off the shelf.
Non-working trade includes things like spoilage, shortages, late fees, and chargebacks—costs that don’t generate sales.
Most brands can’t answer this question. That’s the problem.
From Chaos to Clarity: How One Brand Turned It Around
Back to the $100M brand with a 35% trade spend rate. Leadership told them: “We need to cut. If we can’t reduce trade spend, we’ll have to start slashing everything—promotions, demos, advertising—across the board.”
Everything was on the table. Essential or not.
Right around that time, they joined TrewUp. Things felt chaotic. But instead of panicking, we worked together to dissect their trade spend—breaking it down into working and non-working trade.
That’s when the real picture came into focus.
Half of their deductions were non-working trade.
Yes, half.
Spoils. Fees. Fines. Shortages. Mostly logistics-related costs that had nothing to do with moving product. And the kicker? Their working trade was actually performing well and within budget. It was the hidden operational losses that were crushing profitability.
Once we helped them visualize trade spend by category, SKU, and retailer, they finally had complete clarity. They could see exactly where the “holes in the bucket” were—and how much they were leaking.
Then came the root cause analysis.
A $100K Win from One Process Change
One of the biggest drains? Late fees.
They were getting hammered, losing over $100,000 per year with just one customer.
The cause? Something as simple as rescheduling delivery appointments too close to the delivery window. Once they understood this—and adjusted their logistics process to make changes three days in advance—they eliminated those charges almost overnight.
No more wasted dollars. No hit to promotions.
And no strained retailer relationships.
They didn’t need a hatchet. They needed a scalpel.
The Lesson: Trade Spend Visibility Is Growth Strategy
If you’re not actively analyzing where your trade dollars are going—down to the SKU and deduction level—you’re not just overspending. You’re leaving growth on the table.
This brand avoided drastic cuts, preserved their promotional activity, improved retailer relationships, and saved seven figures—all by shining a light on the right areas of their trade spend.
You can too.
At TrewUp, we help brands break down trade spend, identify non-working costs, and reclaim lost dollars—without sacrificing growth.
Your next six-figure savings could be hiding in plain sight. Ready to find it?
Want to learn how TrewUp can help your brand gain visibility into trade spend?