EDI 852 Product Activity Data: Sell-Through and Replenishment Guide

The EDI 852 is how a retailer tells a supplier what is actually selling, store by store. A purchase order tells you what the buyer wants to receive. The 852 tells you what consumers bought, what is left on the shelf and what is already on order, so you can see a stock-out coming before the next PO arrives, or spot a store sitting on product that is not moving.

This guide covers what the 852 reports, the segments and activity codes, two live examples (a weekly store-level report and a DC report), how suppliers use it for replenishment and vendor-managed inventory, and the mistakes that make 852 data misleading.

What Is an EDI 852?

An EDI 852 is the Product Activity Data transaction set defined by the ASC X12 standards body, used to send inventory, sales and other product activity information from one party to another, typically from a retailer or distributor to its supplier. It travels in functional group PD (the GS01 value).

Authoritative references for 852 work:

• The X12 transaction set catalog defines the 852, and the Stedi X12 004010 852 reference lays out the XQ, LIN, ZA and SDQ structure used in this guide
• The X12 element 859 code list (Activity Code) is the source of every ZA01 code below
• GS1 US governs the UPC and GTIN identifiers that key each product line back to your catalog

Who sends it? The buyer: a retailer reporting store and DC data, or a distributor reporting its own sales and stock of your products.

When is it sent? On a schedule set by the partner, most often weekly, sometimes daily. Each 852 covers the period in its XQ segment.

Why does it matter? It is the closest thing to point-of-sale data most suppliers get. Replenishment, VMI, forecasting and promotion analysis all run on it.

What the 852 Reports

Each item can carry several activity types, each a different number:

• Quantity sold in the period: the sell-through.
• Quantity on hand: stock at the store or DC at the end of the period.
• Quantity on order: units on open purchase orders, not yet received.
• Quantity received, returned, out of stock, transferred and others, where the retailer tracks them.

Which activities a retailer sends, and whether it reports by store, by DC or in total, is set out in its 852 guide.

Interactive Example: Weekly Sell-Through and On Hand by Store

A home goods retailer sends its weekly 852 for 26 October to 1 November. For each item, one ZA per activity (QS sold, QA on hand and available, QP on order) is followed by an SDQ that breaks the quantity out for stores 0012, 0027 and 0031. The stove sold 24 units across three stores with only 5 left, two stores at one or zero, and 30 on order.

Use the Plain English tab for a readable summary, or click any segment to break it down element by element.

Interactive Example: Distribution Center Activity

The same retailer also reports its DC. Here the reporting location is in the header (N1*RL) and each quantity sits in ZA02 instead of an SDQ: units withdrawn to stores (QW), on hand (QA), on order (QP) and received (QR) for the week.

Put the two reports side by side and you can see the whole chain: the DC shipped 210 stoves to stores in the week, stores sold 24 in the three stores shown, and the DC has 36 left with 480 on order.

852 Structure at a Glance

Two rules from the X12 notes shape every 852: the reporting location comes either from N1 with code RL or from SDQ, not both, and each item's quantity goes either in ZA02 or in SDQ.

Key Segments Explained

XQ: Reporting Date/Action

XQ*H*20261026*20261101~

Always store the period with the data. Two weekly files with overlapping dates usually mean a resend, not two weeks of sales.

LIN: Item Identification

LIN*1*UP*088123400204*VN*CP-TENT-2P~

LIN01 is the line number, followed by qualifier and ID pairs: UP UPC, VN vendor item number, and often the retailer's own item number. Match on the identifier the retailer leads with, and keep a cross-reference for the rest.

ZA: Product Activity Reporting

ZA*QW*210*EA~

The ZA01 activity codes suppliers see most, from X12 element 859:

Note that these are a different code list from the 846's QTY01. In an 852, QA means on hand and available; in an 846 QTY01, QA means quantity approved. Map each document with its own list.

SDQ: Destination Quantity

SDQ*EA*92*0012*11*0027*8*0031*5~

An SDQ belongs to the ZA above it. When a retailer has more than ten stores to report, it repeats the SDQ. A large chain's weekly 852 can run to many thousands of segments, so load it into a table rather than reading it by eye.

CTT: Transaction Totals

CTT01 is the number of LIN items. Check it against what you loaded; a short count usually means a truncated file.

How Suppliers Use the 852

1. Spot stock-outs early. Compare each store's on-hand with its weekly sales. Two weeks of cover or less, with nothing on order, is a store that will run out.
2. Plan replenishment. In vendor-managed inventory, the supplier sets order quantities from sales, on-hand and on-order against agreed safety stock and reorder points. Depending on the program, the supplier suggests the order or the retailer issues an 850 based on it.
3. Forecast. Store-level sales history is the input to demand forecasting and to judging whether a promotion worked.
4. Find slow stores. High on-hand with low sales points to a store with too much stock or poor shelf placement.
5. Reconcile. Units the DC withdrew should roughly equal what stores received. A persistent gap is shrink or a reporting error.

EDI 852 vs 846, 867 and EDIFACT SLSRPT

The short version: the 846 describes supply, the 852 describes demand. The 867 tells you who bought from your distributor; the 852 tells you how fast it sold.

Common 852 Mistakes

852 Implementation Checklist

• Get the retailer's 852 guide: activities sent, store or DC level, cadence, identifiers
• Confirm how locations are sent (N1*RL or SDQ) and get the store list
• Map ZA01 codes from element 859
• Build a load that keys data by item, location and period, and replaces resends
• Decide who reviews the data each week and what triggers action
• Acknowledge each 852 with a 997 as agreed
• Compare the first few weeks against the retailer's portal reports, if it has one

Where OrderSync Fits

The 852 tells you what to send. The replenishment orders that follow still have to be entered, and they arrive as EDI 850s and 875s, emails, PDFs and spreadsheets. OrderSync reads orders in any format, matches customers, items and units to your catalog, and outputs valid X12 or clean data for your ERP.

To read an 852 you have received, paste it into the free EDI inspector for a segment-by-segment breakdown with a plain-English summary. For the wider picture, see inventory visibility and reporting and our grocery EDI requirements guide, or book a 15-minute walkthrough to see your own orders processed.

Frequently Asked Questions