The Missing Link in Your Trade Promotion Strategy: Execution
Trade promotion activities are the backbone of brand growth in most retail sectors and specially in the FMCG and CPG space. You’ve invested in strategy, secured budgets, and negotiated prime visibility in retail stores. But here’s the reality:
Even the best strategy can’t deliver results if it’s not executed at the shelf.
Many brands spend months planning promotions — only to lose impact where it matters most: in front of the shopper. Let’s talk about why execution is the critical link, and how to finally take control of it.
Strategy Without Execution Is Just a Plan
Too often, brands treat promotion planning and execution as separate workflows. The marketing team defines the campaign, trade marketers negotiate the listings, and the field teams are left scrambling to activate it in-store.
This disconnect creates gaps like:
- Displays not installed on time
- Promotional pricing missing at the point of sale
- Poor product availability during the campaign window
The result? Shoppers walk past a shelf that should be working for your brand — and buy from someone else instead.
Trade Promotion Execution Drives ROI — Not Just Visibility
Visibility is important. But visibility with flawless execution is what drives sales uplift.
According to industry research, up to 50% of in-store promotions are not executed as planned. That means brands are spending on promotions that never actually reach the customer the way they were intended.
What’s missing?
A system that connects the field team to the strategy in real time — and gives HQ visibility into what’s really happening in-store.
Enter Shelvz: Trade Promotion Execution Made Visible, Actionable, and Scalable
Shelvz bridges the gap between HQ planning and shelf-level reality — by giving brands the tools to monitor, manage, and optimize trade promotions in the field.
Tools Built for Field Teams
With the Shelvz mobile app, your field team knows exactly what to do — where to go, what to check, and how to report execution. From uploading photos to submitting pricing compliance forms, everything is structured and timestamped.
Instant Visibility for Managers
Need to know if your weekend trade promotion launched in 300 stores? Don’t wait for end-of-week reports. Shelvz dashboards show real-time data from every field visit, giving you live compliance metrics you can trust.
Monitor Trade Promotion Execution KPIs with Precision
Whether it’s:
- Planogram compliance
- POSM (point of sale materials) deployment
- Stock availability
- Promo pricing checks
Shelvz tracks it all — and organizes it for you into intuitive reports. No more scattered spreadsheets or WhatsApp groups.
Continuous Feedback Loop
Once you can see what’s working and what’s not, you can optimize, with live data, you can adjust field actions mid-campaign — turning trade promotion execution into an agile, responsive process
Like what your reading?
Take a moment to subscribe before continuing and never miss out on exclusive insights, news, and case studies.
Managing Your Field Team Operations to Collect Data
Effective field team management is critical for successful data collection. Your team is the frontline force that engages directly with consumers, gathering insights and feedback that drive your business forward. Ensuring that they are well-equipped and motivated is essential.
A retail execution tool, like Shelvz couples both field team management as well as field data collection. Making it the perfect solution for field data collection. Manage and monitor your field team, assign surveys to field teams, target specific locations, and compile insightful reporting that drives growth all on one platform.
The two functions of field team management and field data collection work hand-in-hand to streamline and consolidate field operations into one retail execution and operations platform.
Spent yearly on Trade Promotions in CPG
Scalable Trade Promotion Execution Across Channels
When we talk about retail, we know what we’re talking about and we know it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. A brand may be present in a multitude of different retail spaces, this can be modern trade, traditional trade, distributors, pop-up stores, local chains, even pharmacies and specialized stores in some instances.
Shelvz is built to scale across this complexity, offering consistent trade promotion execution monitoring no matter where your products sit. The same promotion can be tracked across hypermarkets in Dubai, corner stores in Jeddah, and local chains in Muscat — all from one platform.
When Trade Promotion Execution and Strategy Align
Let’s say your team rolls out a Summer-specific campaign for a flagship product across 500 stores. Using Shelvz, you can:
- Ensure day-one rollout with photo confirmation
- See exactly which stores activated the promo
- Get real-time alerts for stockouts or pricing discrepancies
- Reassign field reps to fix issues on the spot
The difference between planned success and actual success? Execution data — delivered live, store by store.
Don’t Let Trade Promotion Execution Be the Afterthought
If execution isn’t built into your trade promotion strategy from day one, you’re putting your brand at risk. Promotions that don’t show up at the shelf are more than missed opportunities — they’re wasted investments.
With Shelvz, execution isn’t the afterthought — it’s the main event.
Ready to Elevate Your Trade Promotion Execution?
Let Shelvz turn your next trade promotion into a measurable, high-impact campaign — from HQ to shelf.
