How to prepare a category review buyers actually act on

I spent seven years building Better Nature into roughly 5,000 stores in six countries, and I prepared our range reviews with Tesco, Asda, Ocado, REWE and more myself. If I were doing it again, these are the eight steps I'd follow:

• Get the date and the buyer's question.
• Put every data source on one set of definitions.
• Tell the category story first.
• Find the gaps in stores you already sell to.
• Size the ask in the buyer's money.
• Name the risks before the buyer does.
• Build the deck and a one-page leave-behind.
• Answer the buyer's questions before the meeting.

What you need before you start:

• The date of the retailer's next review for your category, and its submission deadline.
• Your sales data from that retailer, ideally the last 52 weeks.
• Your distributor reports, if you sell through UNFI, KeHE, or a DSD (direct-store-delivery) distributor.
• Any category data you buy, such as a NielsenIQ, SPINS, or Circana report.
• Last year's promotion calendar and what each promotion sold.

What is a category review?

A category review is a scheduled meeting where a retailer's buyer, the person who decides what goes on the shelf, sits down with suppliers to look at how a whole product category is selling. Out of the review come three decisions: which products the store carries, how much shelf space each one gets, and which promotions run next.

NielsenIQ says these meetings generally happen twice a year, though it depends on the retailer and the relationship. Most are on the retailer's calendar. A supplier can also ask for one, usually to suggest how the whole category could sell more.

The buyer is reviewing the whole shelf, and your products are one part of it. So a review built around your brand gives them very little to work with.

Is a line review the same as a category review?

A line review is close but narrower. OpenBrand, which sells market data to retailers, defines a product line review as a meeting where a brand shows category and brand data to a buyer "to negotiate shelf space, defend existing SKUs, or propose assortment changes." Retailers use the words loosely, so ask the buyer which meeting this is.

Term	What it is	What you bring
Category review	The buyer looks at the whole category with its suppliers	Category trends, your share, and where the category can grow
Line review	The buyer looks closely at one supplier's products	Each SKU's sales, which ones to keep, and what to add
Range review	The usual UK name for a category review	The same as a category review
Reset (or modular)	The day the new planogram (the map of what sits where on the shelf) goes into every store	Nothing on the day. Your setup data and samples are due weeks before

SPS Commerce describes the supplier in a line review as "an extension of the retailer's merchant team", because buyers often manage thousands of SKUs and lean on suppliers to know the category.

When do category reviews happen, and how early do you start?

Most retailers run reviews on a yearly calendar, with a window for each category. Presence Marketing, a brokerage that sells for CPG brands, says the whole process can take anywhere from two to eight months. SPS Commerce puts a grocery category reset at up to 40 weeks, from the first presentation to products on the shelf.

So count backward from the reset date. Say the new shelf goes live in June. At up to 40 weeks, the review meeting could fall the September before, with your setup data and samples due in between.

Start the data work at least three months before that meeting, which in this example means early summer the year before.

Missing the window costs you. RangeMe, a platform where suppliers submit products to retail buyers, tells suppliers not to submit to a retailer outside its review period, or the submission "may be overlooked." If you sell through a distributor, add one more date. The distributor has its own new-item setup, with its own forms and deadlines, so build that into your count back from the reset.

Why do buyers ignore most category review decks?

Most decks are about the brand, and the buyer's job is the whole shelf, so there's little in them the buyer can use. OpenBrand, writing for category managers, puts it bluntly: vendors "typically present at the brand level," and the competitive slide "will conveniently leave out every brand doing better than theirs."

The second reason is numbers that don't match. If your velocity figure comes from shipments and the buyer's comes from scans, they won't agree. That means the meeting gets spent on whose number is right.

The third is that there's no ask. A deck that ends on a growth chart gives the buyer nothing to say yes to. End on the decision you want: add these two SKUs to these stores, or run this promotion in these weeks.

The fourth reason is time. CMKG, a category management training firm, surveyed its clients and students, and almost all of them said the time it takes to build a category review was the biggest thing to fix.

Its founder, Sue Nicholls, found that many teams build each review almost from scratch. Most of those weeks go on joining a NielsenIQ or Circana report to your own retailer and distributor data, so the thinking gets squeezed into the last few days.

How to prepare a category review, step by step

1. Get the date and the buyer's question

Find the date on the retailer's review calendar. Then write down, in one sentence, what the buyer wants from the category this year.

It might be more healthy options, more private label, or fewer SKUs on a crowded shelf. If you don't know, ask the buyer well before the review.

2. Put every data source on one set of definitions

You start with reports that disagree so you need to align on one set of definitions. A "sale" is a shipped case in one system and a scanned unit in another, and the same store has a different name in every feed. At CLEAN Cause, KeHE calls a chain an "area name" and VIP calls it an "immediate owner."

The same thing happens with products. Wild, a natural deodorant brand owned by Unilever, sells through UK grocers. Tesco knows a Wild product by its TPNB (Tesco's own product number), Sainsbury's by an item code, and dunnhumby by its own product list. Before Corvera, someone at Wild exported the reports every week, "stitched them together in spreadsheets, and reconciled the names by hand before any analysis could be performed."

You're done with this step when you have one list of products and stores that you trust. Know which numbers are sell-in (what you shipped to a distributor), which are depletions (what the distributor shipped to stores), and which are sell-through (what shoppers bought).

3. Tell the category story first

Start with the category: whether it's growing, where, and who's taking share, with private label counted as a competitor.

Your brand comes second, as the reason the category can grow faster. If the deck opens with your logo and your growth chart, you're back to the brand review that buyers tune out.

4. Find the gaps in stores you already sell to

The easiest growth is usually in chains that already carry you. A gap is a store or chain that carries some of your products but not your best sellers.

CLEAN Cause found one by hand in August. In a 150-store chain, only two of their thirteen SKUs were reaching the shelf.

When the team opened the Corvera dashboard to cross-check, the gap was already flagged, with the two best-selling SKUs to pitch next and what they'd add in sales. Jon, their VP of Sales, called the buyer, and the SKU extension is now being discussed.

5. Size the ask in the buyer's money

Buyers decide in sales and margin, so put your ask in those terms. The most useful comparison you have is your own best retailer.

At Wild, Jack Scott, the Global Commercial Director, asked where Wild was leaving growth on the table. We pulled three years of category history alongside Wild's own sales and compared its share in each grocer with its best. The gap came to between £3.4m and £6.6m in additional retail sales.

You can follow the same logic with your data: find the retailer where you do best, ask what you'd sell elsewhere at that rate, and the difference is the size of the prize.

6. Name the risks before the buyer does

The buyer will ask about cannibalization (your new SKU taking sales from another product on the same shelf), price, and slow sellers, so bring the answers. If one of your own SKUs is weak, offer to drop it, which makes the rest of your ask easier to believe.

At Better Nature, I once offered to delist our slowest flavor before the buyer brought it up. They were already planning to cut it, and because we'd said it first, it was much easier to get a new line in.

7. Build the deck and a one-page leave-behind

Keep the order simple: the category, then your brand's part in it, then the ask, then how you'll support it with promotions and supply. Then write a one-page summary the buyer can forward to their boss.

The work goes faster when the numbers are already joined up. At Wild, Liv, the category manager, now lifts our outputs "straight into buyer decks."

8. Answer the buyer's questions before the meeting

Buyers often send questions ahead. Answer them in writing before you walk in, so the meeting time goes on decisions.

When a retail buyer sent Jon questions ahead of a pitch, he put them straight into Claude, which was connected to CLEAN Cause's data in Corvera. His words: "It gave me 90% of the answers I was looking for."

What data should you bring to a category review?

Bring numbers the buyer can check against their own system.

Metric	What it tells the buyer	Where it usually comes from
Category growth and your share	Whether the category is growing, and who's winning	Retailer data or a syndicated report (NielsenIQ, SPINS, Circana)
Rate of sale (units per store per week)	Whether your products earn their space	Retailer point-of-sale data
ACV or store count	How widely you're stocked. ACV is the share of stores carrying you, weighted by each store's total sales	Retailer data or a syndicated report
Gaps by store	Where your best sellers are missing	Your store list matched to retailer data
Promotion lift	What each promotion added over normal sales	Retailer data plus your promotion calendar
Sell-through vs depletions	Whether shoppers are buying what was shipped	Retailer data plus distributor reports

Lead with the number the buyer already sees in their own system. Then add what they can't see, like your gaps by store or your rate in other retailers.

If you sell through UNFI or KeHE, be careful with distributor reports. They show depletions (what the distributor shipped to stores), which means they can't tell you on their own whether shoppers bought it.

FAQ

How often do retailers hold category reviews?

Category reviews usually happen once or twice a year for each category. NielsenIQ says twice a year is typical, but each retailer sets its own calendar. Ask your buyer, or check whether the retailer publishes its review schedule.

Can a small brand ask for a category review?

Yes. A supplier can ask for a category review, usually to show the buyer how the category could sell more. Come with a reason that's about the category, like a fast-growing segment the shelf is missing. Your new product then comes in as the way to fill it.

What should a category review deck include?

A category review deck should cover the category first, then your brand's part in it, then your ask, then how you'll support it. Keep it short, and add a one-page summary the buyer can pass on.

What's the difference between a category review and a reset?

The category review is where the decisions are made. The reset is when those decisions reach the shelf, as the new planogram goes into every store. In grocery, the time between the two can be months.

What to do in the weeks after the review

Send a recap within a few days. List each decision, who owns it, and the date it's due. Presence Marketing also suggests emailing the buyer a digital copy of your presentation with notes, so they have it to refer back to.

Then hit the retailer's deadlines for product setup and samples, because the reset is planned around them. Once the products are on the shelf, track their rate of sale from the first week, so your next review opens with real sales from those stores.

Between reviews, the same numbers feed your quarterly business review with the buyer and your joint business plan for the year.

Before you close this tab, find the date of your biggest retailer's next category review and count back from it. If the meeting is less than three months away, start the data work this week.

Of course I'm biased, but this is the work we built Corvera to take off a category team. Category management on Corvera joins your retailer and distributor feeds with any syndicated data you buy, so share and velocity come out on one set of definitions.

If you sell through distributors and this has sparked your interest, grab 30 minutes on my calendar and I'll show you what that looks like!

Sources

• Corvera, "Wild's category team runs on Corvera" (Christopher Kong, August 26, 2026)
• Corvera, "CLEAN Cause runs and enhances its daily sales decisions on Corvera" (Christopher Kong, August 18, 2026)
• NielsenIQ, "How to Impress During Category Reviews"
• Presence Marketing, "Category Reviews and How to Prepare"
• SPS Commerce, "How to Prepare for Your First Modular: A Timeline for New Suppliers"
• RangeMe, "How to Strategically Time Your Submissions"
• OpenBrand, "5 Questions Category Managers Should Be Able to Answer After Line Reviews"
• CMKG (Sue Nicholls), "What's in a Best-In-Class Category Review?"