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Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Ecommerce Platform

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At a glance

Catalogue product count grouped by brand (BC’s vendor / brand field). Tells you how the catalogue is split across suppliers, which brands carry the catalogue depth, and where supplier concentration risk lives. The brand split is a leading indicator for supplier-relationship management.

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Calculation

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Worked example

A US homewares brand on BigCommerce Pro that resells multi-brand inventory plus a private label, snapshot at 12 Apr 26. What’s interesting:
  1. House Label at 33.2% is healthy private-label concentration. Mature multi-brand retailers typically run 25-40% on house brand; the margin uplift on private label (60-80%) vs branded (25-40%) is the financial case. Below 25% suggests under-developed private label; above 40% suggests over-reliance.
  2. Brand A at 14.9% is the supplier-concentration risk. A 15% catalogue share + multi-year contract means a price increase, a stockout, or a contract dispute on Brand A hits 15% of the catalogue. Most stores diversify when single-brand share approaches 20%.
  3. The 26.2% long-tail across 40 brands is structurally interesting. Each long-tail brand carries 30-100 SKUs on average; together they make up a quarter of catalogue. Long-tail brands collectively are the 2nd-largest “brand” but are operationally fragmented. Consolidation potential: drop the bottom 10-15 brands with lowest sell-through, simplifies merchandising significantly.
  4. 45 Unassigned products is small but consequential. These products lack a brand value; Amazon Channel Manager and Google Shopping require a brand attribute and will reject these from feeds. Fix the brand field for these 45 products before they affect marketplace listing eligibility. Often the cause is a CSV import where the supplier didn’t provide brand data; a quick mapping fix.
  5. Brand-level revenue often differs from brand-level catalogue share. A brand with 5% of products may generate 25% of revenue (high-velocity) or 1% (long-tail catalogue padding). Pair with Top Products and BC Top SKUs Revenue for the revenue-weighted brand view.
The strategic playbook:
  1. Audit the Unassigned bucket urgently. Empty brand fields break marketplace feeds; fix in a one-time bulk update.
  2. Review supplier-concentration risk. Brands above 15% catalogue share + above 25% revenue share need succession planning, what’s the diversification strategy if that supplier fails?
  3. Prune long-tail brands annually. The 40th-ranked brand probably represents 0.5-1.5% of catalogue and 0.2-0.8% of revenue. Operations cost (separate supplier relationship, separate purchase orders, separate returns process) often outweighs the revenue contribution.
  4. Watch private-label growth deliberately. House Label growth from 30% to 50% over 2-3 years is a pricing-and-margin transformation; it should be deliberate, not accidental.
  5. Cross-reference brand list with marketplace brand registry. Amazon’s Brand Registry requires verified brand ownership; non-registered brands lose access to A+ Content and Brand Analytics, materially hurting Amazon channel performance.

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Sibling cards merchants should reference together

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Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Catalogue → Brands shows the master brand list with product counts. Catalogue → Products supports filter by Brand. For marketplace-feed validation, Channel Manager shows which brands are eligible for which channels. Amazon Brand Registry verification status lives in Amazon Seller Central, not in BC. Why our number may legitimately differ from BC catalogue view: Cross-connector reconciliation: Same-metric documentation cross-reference:

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Known limitations / merchant FAQs

My brand list has duplicates (“3M” and “3M Company”), how do I consolidate? Bulk-edit via BC API or admin UI. Sequence: identify the canonical name (usually shortest), bulk-update all products with the variant brand to use the canonical, verify counts match, then delete the now-empty variant brand. BC will warn before deleting a brand that still has products. Why are 45 products showing as Unassigned? Brand field is empty on those products. Common causes: (1) CSV import where supplier didn’t provide brand data, (2) products created via API without brand specified, (3) house-label products where the merchant forgot to assign their own brand. Fix by bulk-editing those 45 products to set the appropriate brand. Should every product have a brand, even house-label? Yes. Marketplace feeds (Amazon, Google Shopping) require a brand attribute; products without one are rejected. For house-label, set brand = your store name or “House Label”. The brand field shouldn’t be empty for any sellable product. My private label is 50% of catalogue, is that healthy? Strategically interesting. 25-40% private label is the sweet spot for most multi-brand retailers, balances margin with breadth. 50%+ means private label is the dominant strategy; you’re effectively a private-label brand using a multi-brand storefront, which works but changes the marketing approach. Why does Amazon reject some of my brands? Amazon’s Brand Registry only accepts brands you’ve verified ownership of. Reseller brands (where you’re not the brand owner) fall outside Brand Registry; you can still list them but lose access to A+ Content, Brand Analytics, and brand-protection tools. For brands you own, complete Brand Registry verification. My B2B catalogue duplicates branded products from retail, do I need separate brand entries? No. Same brand name should have one entry; per-channel availability handles the B2B vs retail split. Duplicating brands creates a maintenance burden. Can I see brand-level revenue from this card? Not directly. Pair with BC Revenue by Brand for revenue or BC Margin by Brand for margin. The catalogue-share-vs-revenue-share gap is the most useful diagnostic; high catalogue / low revenue = under-performing brand. Why is my long tail so heavy? Common pattern in multi-brand retail. Each new supplier adds 30-100 SKUs; the long tail accumulates as brands stay on the platform after their initial launch loses momentum. The right move: annual review, drop bottom 10-15 brands by sell-through. Should brand drive my navigation menu? Depends on customer behaviour. Brand-aware shoppers (luxury, fashion, electronics) navigate by brand, brand-led navigation works. Commodity shoppers (groceries, DIY) navigate by category, brand is secondary. Audit your storefront analytics for brand-page click-through rates; if low, brands belong in filters not in navigation. Can I bulk-import brand assignments? Yes via BC API or admin CSV import. Format: SKU + brand-name. Most stores correct brand drift in batches of 500-2,000 products at a time; takes 30-90 minutes per batch.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Products by Vendor is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across BigCommerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.