1
Space feels fragile
Founders enter the meeting worried that one weak metric, one slow item, or one retailer objection could put distribution at risk.
C12 • Retailer Category Review Mini-Course
Your next category review could protect shelf space—or quietly put it at risk.
Stop reacting. Start guiding the outcome.
Learn how to prepare one retailer-ready category review that explains what happened, why it happened, what the shopper and market are signaling, and what the retailer should do next.
One retailer
One category review
One clear recommendation
Regular price: $297
Founder access
$97
Enroll Now | $97
Instant access • Practical course • 14-day guarantee
The big shift
A category review is not a defense of your brand.
It is an opportunity to help the retailer understand the category, reduce uncertainty, protect the right space, and make a smarter decision.
Most brands arrive prepared to explain the past. The strongest brands arrive prepared to guide what happens next.
Watch the course preview
Turn the meeting from a threat into a strategic growth opportunity.
You will learn how to complete the retailer’s required process, then add the insight, shopper context, competitive perspective, and recommendation the standard template does not provide.
Why category reviews feel risky
The meeting exposes every weak assumption at once.
2
The story becomes defensive
The presentation starts explaining the brand instead of helping the retailer understand the category, shopper, and opportunity.
3
The recommendation stays vague
More slides are added, but the meeting still ends without a clear decision, owner, measure, or next step.
What you will learn
Prepare the review around the retailer decision—not the presentation.
- Understand the retailer’s category-review process and expectations
- Clarify the category role and retailer objective
- Separate a category overview from a deeper strategic review
- Start at the category and drill down to the item
- Compare the account with the market and competition
- Overlay shopper behavior, need states, and decision drivers
- Identify what should be defended, changed, tested, or removed
- End with one recommendation, owner, measure, and follow-up date
Build your Retailer Category Review Brief
Make the opportunity—and the risk—easy to understand.
The retailer already knows how your brand performed on its shelves. Your value is explaining what the result means and what should happen next.
Retailer Objective
What is the retailer trying to improve: traffic, profit, margin, productivity, differentiation, or shopper loyalty?
What Happened
What changed in sales, units, velocity, distribution, assortment, promotion, margin, inventory, or execution?
Why It Happened
What shopper behavior, need state, use occasion, decision driver, or friction helps explain the result?
What Influenced It
What competitor, retailer, pricing, promotion, availability, placement, or market factor shaped the outcome?
What To Do Next
What should be protected, changed, tested, or stopped—and who owns the next action?
Complete the process. Then contribute the insight.
The retailer’s template is the price of entry—not the finished strategy.
Give the retailer what they asked for.
Complete the required template accurately and on time. Respect the retailer’s process, terminology, data requirements, and meeting format.
Then add one useful layer the template does not provide: the shopper explanation, competitive signal, opportunity gap, commercial implication, or recommendation.
Clarity
What decision is the retailer actually making?
Evidence
Which facts support the recommendation?
Economics
What is the likely value, cost, margin, or risk?
Execution
Who owns the next action, and when will it be reviewed?
The quick win
Prepare one retailer-ready category review.
Choose one retailer, one category issue, and one decision the meeting needs to advance.
Your first Category Review Brief
1. Define the retailer objective
2. Show what happened
3. Explain why and what influenced it
4. Recommend one next move
5. Assign owner, measure, and review date
What changes
Move from defending the brand to guiding the decision.
Before
- The review begins with the brand and its accomplishments
- The team reacts to retailer concerns in the room
- Every SKU feels equally important
- Facts, opinions, and assumptions blur together
- The meeting ends with vague follow-up
After
- The review begins with the retailer’s objective
- The evidence is organized around one decision
- The strongest items and opportunities are prioritized
- Shopper and competitive context explain the performance
- The meeting ends with an owner, measure, and next step
How I learned it and earned it
The relationship changed when I stopped bringing reports and started helping retailers decide.
Early in my career, I completed the same retailer templates every other brand completed. That was the price of entry.
The opportunity came from going one step further—connecting category performance to the shopper, the market, the competition, and a recommendation the retailer could use.
Your instructor
Daniel Lohman, CPSA
I help emerging CPG brands understand what is really driving retail performance, why what happened happened, and what the team should do next.
This mini-course helps you turn a category review into a practical retailer decision tool— not another presentation the buyer forgets as soon as the meeting ends.
Frequently asked questions
Still deciding?
Is a category review the same at every retailer?
No. The timing, terminology, format, template, attendees, data requirements, and decision authority vary. Learn the retailer’s process before building the presentation.
Do I need syndicated data?
Not always. You may be able to build a useful review using retailer POS, shipment data, promotion history, distribution, inventory, store observations, shopper feedback, competitive checks, and clearly labeled hypotheses. The evidence should match the decision.
What is the first practical outcome?
One retailer-ready Category Review Brief for one retailer, one category issue, and one recommendation.
Should I ignore the retailer’s required template?
No. Complete it accurately and on time. Then add the useful context, insight, and recommendation the standard report does not provide.
How much data should I include?
Enough to support the decision and reveal the tradeoffs. More data is not automatically better. Remove anything that does not help the retailer understand the issue or evaluate the recommendation.
What is the guarantee?
You have 14 days to review the course. If it does not give you practical ideas you can use to improve a real category review, email Retail Solved and your purchase will be refunded.
Turn the review into an advantage
Protect the core. Clarify the opportunity. Guide the next decision.
One retailer. One category review. One clear recommendation.
Instant access • Regular price $297 • 14-day guarantee
