Repeat purchase
50.8%
Overall repeat rate stayed inside the intended commercial range.
Commercial framing
Not a generic dashboard. A pack and channel decision.
Premium beer performance is shaped by where shoppers buy, which format they choose, and how often promotions are used to move demand. This case study reads those signals together so the category can be discussed in terms of commercial trade-offs, not isolated metrics.
Business question
Which combinations create the best balance of volume, repeat purchase, and margin?
The aim is not to prove that one channel or one format wins on every metric. The point is to show the trade-offs clearly enough that a commercial team can decide where premium beer growth should be concentrated in Gauteng.
Commercial read
Volume engine
Take-home retailThe category is led by planned retail missions rather than on-premise volume.
Retention anchor
6-pack canThe strongest repeat-purchase format in the model.
Margin caution
PromosThey lift volume, but they do not create clean growth by default.
Growth focus
GautengThe clearest market for concentrated pack and channel testing.
Pack performance
The category is carried by retail-friendly multi-packs.
Single-serve formats still matter, especially in on-premise settings, but the strongest repeat-purchase behaviour sits with formats built for planned take-home buying. That makes multi-pack performance central to the premium beer story.
The strongest repeat-purchase behaviour sits with the 6-pack can, while multi-pack formats dominate the scale story overall.
Channel mix
Retail wins the scale story. The premium question is what it keeps.
A bigger channel is only useful if its economics hold. In this model, take-home retail leads on both commercial scale and average margin contribution, which makes it the core channel rather than just the biggest one.
The retail core carries the strongest value pool while still keeping margin quality intact.
What this changes
The conversation shifts from prestige visibility to retail execution.
If the category is retail-led, then premium beer growth depends less on broad brand theatre and more on getting the right formats, support intensity, and promo discipline into the highest-frequency missions.
Promotion trade-off
Promotions move volume, but they also lean on margin.
Promo activity behaves the way it often does in FMCG. It creates movement, but the commercial quality of that movement depends on where it is concentrated and whether repeat behaviour justifies the pressure on value.
Promoted transactions lifted average volume by 15.2% while reducing average margin by 25.8%, which makes promo targeting more important than promo frequency alone.
Market lens
Gauteng is the clearest place to test profitable growth.
The Gauteng view matters because it concentrates the strongest mix of retail scale, repeat purchase, and commercial depth in the synthetic market. It is the clearest lead market for sharper pack and channel choices.
The highest-opportunity combinations in Gauteng are the ones where repeat purchase, margin quality, and meaningful sales weight come together.
Recommended focus
Back the retail core
Keep strong repeat-purchase formats well supported in take-home retail.
Use promos selectively
Concentrate discounting where the pack and channel economics can absorb it.
Lead with Gauteng
Test sharper commercial choices in Gauteng before wider rollout.
Protect value
Read pack and channel strategy together so premium growth does not quietly erode margin.
Evidence and links
Commercial evidence, supporting outputs, and underlying files.
This section brings the key insights, exported charts, and dataset structure into one place so the commercial argument can be reviewed alongside the supporting outputs.
01
Multi-packs retain better
The 6-pack can has the highest repeat purchase rate in the portfolio at 56.0%.
02
Retail is the volume engine
Take-home retail contributes the most volume at 16,232 litres.
03
Margin quality stays in the core
Take-home retail delivers the strongest average margin contribution at R34.36 per transaction.
04
Promotions are not free growth
Volume moves up, but margin quality drops sharply when promo pressure rises.
05
Gauteng over-indexes on retail missions
The province is still the best setting for pack and channel experimentation.
06
The best growth bet is specific
The 12-pack in take-home retail ranks highest on the Gauteng opportunity score.
Dataset summary
| File | Rows | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| transactions.csv | 9,200 | Transaction-level pack, channel, value, and repeat purchase records |
| customers.csv | 2,500 | Customer segments, purchase frequency, and preferred channel |
| packs.csv | 20 | Pack definitions, price points, and typical margins |
| promotions.csv | 500 | Promotion windows, channels, and expected uplift |
| channel_pack_summary.csv | 15 | Roll-up view of channel and pack performance |
Project links
Explore the project from summary to source.
The standalone page presents the commercial narrative. The III.IV case file provides the structured write-up, and the GitHub repository contains the notebook, synthetic data pipeline, and exported outputs.