A line review is the meeting where a retailer decides what it will stock in a category for the coming period. Every item in the category is assessed, some are kept, some are cut, and new items are considered against the ones already on the shelf. For a brand selling through retail it is the single highest-stakes event of the year.
Line reviews are run by the retailer's category manager, usually annually and by category, though the cycle varies by retailer and by how fast the category moves.
The brand presents. The case is built on the retailer's own measures. That means how fast the item sells per store per week, what it earns the retailer per unit and per unit of shelf space, whether it brings shoppers into the category who were not buying it before, and how it performs against the items it would displace.
The outcome sets distribution, the number of facings, position in the planogram, and the promotional calendar for the year. It also sets what happens to items that did not make the case, which is removal.
Everything else a brand does through retail runs downstream of this decision. A brand that loses facings at line review spends the following year working harder for less shelf, and a brand that is delisted loses that retailer's volume outright.
The case that wins is made in the retailer's terms rather than the brand's. A retailer is allocating finite shelf space and wants to know what each item earns in that space and whether it grows the category. A presentation built on brand metrics, or on claims the retailer cannot verify in its own data, tends not to land.
Where a brand has its own evidence about shopper behavior, it should be precise about what that evidence covers. Data from a brand's own members describes people who chose to join the program. It is useful and it is specific, and it should not be presented as describing every shopper in the category.
A brand enters a line review with strong sales growth but weaker turns per store than two competing items. The category manager is deciding between three products for two slots. Total growth is less relevant to that decision than performance per unit of shelf, and the brand loses a facing to a smaller but faster-selling item.
Preparing for line review as a presentation rather than as a year of evidence. The numbers that decide it accumulate over the preceding twelve months, and the material difference is usually made long before the meeting is booked.
Where TrueLoyal fits: Brands selling through third-party retail see shipments and syndicated reports. They do not see shoppers. TrueLoyal builds a direct relationship with those who opt in, which gives the brand its own record of member behavior over time to set alongside the retailer's data.
Most commonly they happen once a year per category, though it varies by retailer and category. Faster-moving and more seasonal categories are reviewed more often.
It decides which items are stocked, how many facings each gets, where they sit in the planogram, and the promotional plan for the year. In practice it decides which items are removed as much as which are added.
The evidence that matters most is expressed per store and per unit of shelf space rather than as totals, along with the margin the retailer earns and whether the item brings shoppers into the category rather than moving them between existing items.
It can, used carefully. Evidence about how a brand's own members behave over time is specific and can be useful, but it describes those members rather than the category's shoppers as a whole, and it should be presented that way.
A facing is one unit of a product visible at the front of the shelf. An item with four facings occupies four units of width at eye level in the planogram, and an item with one facing occupies one. Facings determine how much of the shelf a product owns and, with it, how easily a shopper finds it.
A planogram is the retailer's diagram of a shelf, specifying exactly which products sit where, on which shelf, in what order, and with how many facings each. Store staff set the shelf to match it. It is shortened to POG in most retail conversation.
Trade spend is the money a brand pays a retailer to get its products onto the shelf and moving off it. It covers slotting fees for new items, promotional discounts, display and feature advertising, and allowances of various kinds. For most brands selling through retail it is the largest cost line after the cost of goods, commonly running between 15% and 25% of gross sales.
Out-of-stock, usually shortened to OOS, is a product not being on the shelf when a shopper looks for it. It is measured from the shelf rather than from the warehouse, which is the distinction that matters. A product can be in the store, in the back room, and still out of stock as far as the shopper is concerned. The same measure stated positively is on-shelf availability.
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