• How significant is the category role? (Destination, routine, occasional, convenience)
• Is the category growing?
• What sector(s) is driving category growth?
• What is the retailer's Share of Trade (SoT) in the category and by sector and v total purchasing (e.g. "Dry Grocery")?
• Is he under or over trading in any particular sector and if so are there any obvious reasons for this?
• Are there any marked differences in promotion support given to the category by different retailers? (ref volume bought on deal or Scantrack measures of promotion measures observed in store.)
• Are any manufacturers supporting the category by their media spend? (MEAL)

1.2 Examine key sectors in more detail

• What brands are driving sector growth/taking sector share?
• Does the retailer under or over trade in these key brands?
• Does space allocation on the fixture sensibly reflect market shares?
• Does the retailer want to emphasise Own Label?
• Do any key brands suffer excessive out of stocks?
• Are we missing any top selling SKUs, or should any be delisted? (Compare cash rate of sale ranking for the market with one for that retailer; sourced from trading data)
• A further refinement of this would be to apply real or estimated retail margins and examine profit generated rather than cash.
• Relative pricing issues.
• Promotional weight by brand relative to other retailers
• Trends in Consumer awareness/image etc (e.g Millward Brown)
• Consumer purchase behaviour: Brand loyalty, brand switching, brand repertoire.
• Brand v retail demographics / segmentation

When doing this kind of work, only present back enough data to make your point. This is a process where you could produce endless templates and cut huge rafts of numbers and soon loose sight of the simple learnings that are immediately actionable and profitable. Also, remember that nearly all data is directional rather than absolute, so avoid the pitfall of spending large amounts of energy trying to reconcile different data sources. Look for data direction and scale as indicators of robustness.

2. Building relationship & mutual dependence

At this stage the buyer may be approaching a much more considered appraisal of the category. The emphasis moves from evolution to revolution based on applying knowledge gained in research.

Consumer segmentation. At this point we would try to take on board the retailers understanding of his own consumer segmentation, but if he does not have any then we should have our own researched views to offer him. If he does have his own, it is likely to be basic demographics which we could in turn use our research to translate into our own segmentation. While this might be an intellectual struggle for the retailer initially he should see the practical benefit e.g. it is easier to articulate a promotional concept or in-store theatre with an "Urban fun seeker" in mind rather than a group of C2 males aged 24-35.

Category Development Research. The retailer is always going to be hungry for tips on how the category (and the consumers that shop it) will develop. It is likely that we have investigated these trends and can give the retailer leading edge insights into packing trends, possible areas of NPD, new sectors/niches. All this serves to build our influence with the retailer.

Joint research. An obvious extension of anything that has been mentioned already is that retailer and manufacturer could collaborate on pieces of in-store research. Promotional concept testing, test planagrams and more basic questions of how shoppers actually shop the fixture could be tackled to the mutual benefit of both parties.

3. Gaining a competitive edge

One of the big obstacles to be overcome by anyone not in the industry number 1 slot, is how to gain influence when there is little realistic change of becoming Category Captain. There are two ways to tackle this.

• Identify the sub categories where you do dominate and market yourself as experts in these sectors, on the reasonable expectation that the big player has insufficient resources to know every detail about every sector. As this opens the door to the retailer you may find that your role is upgraded to that of "Validator" of the Category Captain's efforts.
• The second route to influence is to bring a USP to your analysis in terms of a cutting edge analysis tool or working method. This requires trawling through the smaller software firms and consultancies looking for a skill that would give you an edge, PROVIDED the retailer wanted to get into all the detail of applying complex analysis.