Sharing analysis with retailers and wholesalers
Sharing analysis with a retailer or wholesaler is a normal part of a trading relationship and it carries obligations. Some data is licensed and cannot be redistributed. Some is commercially sensitive to third parties. And some is simply unhelpful to share because it will not survive their scrutiny.
Deciding what goes out is worth a policy rather than a case-by-case judgment.
What are the licence constraints?
Most syndicated data licences restrict redistribution, sometimes entirely and sometimes to specified recipients or formats. Sharing a provider's numbers with a retailer may breach the agreement even when the intent is collaborative.
Read the licence before building a pack around purchased data. The answer is frequently that derived insights may be shared while underlying figures may not, and that distinction shapes the whole document.
What about a competitor's data?
A pack containing a competitor's item-level performance is sharing information about a third party with somebody who trades with both. Aggregated category figures are ordinarily fine; item-level competitor detail deserves more thought.
The test is whether you would be comfortable with the equivalent being shared about you. That is a reasonable standard and it resolves most cases.
What about store-level data?
Store-level figures identify individual businesses, and in a fragmented channel a store-level extract is close to a report on named independent operators. Aggregation exists to protect them and stripping it in a shared document undoes that.
Can aggregation ever fail to protect? Yes, when the cells get small, which is why minimum thresholds exist and why they should survive into anything shared.
What should be shared?
The analysis and the recommendation, with enough evidence to support it. A retailer needs to see the basis for a claim; they do not need the raw extract, and offering it frequently creates more problems than it solves.
Send the argument, not the database.
How should it be labelled?
With the source, the universe, the period and the basis, exactly as an internal document would be. A shared figure without its basis will be quoted back at you in a later meeting attached to a different meaning.
Version and date it, so that a figure quoted months later can be located.
What should not be shared?
Anything the licence prohibits, anything identifying individual stores below your suppression threshold, anything that infers characteristics about shoppers that should not be inferred, and anything you cannot defend line by line.
The last is a practical test as much as an ethical one. A shared figure you cannot explain is a liability in the next meeting.
Frequently asked questions
Can I share a chart built from licensed data?
It depends on the licence, and many permit derived visualisations while prohibiting underlying figures. Check rather than assume, because the distinction between a chart and a data extract is not always where intuition places it.
What if the retailer asks for the raw file?
Explain the licence position and offer what you can share. A partner who understands the constraint usually accepts it, and one who pushes is asking you to breach an agreement on their behalf.
Should I share unfavourable findings?
If they are relevant to the category conversation, yes, and it is the most credible thing a brand can do. Selective sharing is detected quickly by anybody with their own data.
What about wholesaler-level data in independent retail?
Wholesaler figures can identify a small number of businesses, so the same suppression logic applies. In a channel with few wholesalers per region, aggregation protects less than it does elsewhere.
Can I share my own shipment data?
It is yours and it is also commercially revealing, so the question is strategic rather than legal. Sharing depletion or velocity is usually more useful to the conversation and less revealing.
How do I handle a request for shopper-level insight?
By declining any inference about individuals or households that the data cannot support. Tender type is a payment method, not a persona, and a request framed around inferring characteristics should be redirected rather than fulfilled.
Should shared packs be archived?
Yes, with the date and recipient. What you shared becomes part of the relationship's record and you will be asked about it.
Does this apply to a field team sharing figures in store?
It does, and it is the least controlled channel for data leaving a business. A short rule about what may be shown in store is worth having.
What is the simplest policy?
Share conclusions and the evidence for them; do not share extracts, competitor item detail or anything below your suppression threshold. Industry practice on category collaboration is discussed by trade bodies such as FMI.
Who should approve what goes out?
One named person, with a short standing rule for routine material so that most packs need no approval. A process requiring sign-off on everything gets bypassed; one requiring it on exceptions is followed.
### What should a brand actually do with this?
Write the standing rule on one page and circulate it to everybody who might share anything, including field teams. The most common breaches are informal and they come from people who never saw a policy.
Then review it annually against the licences you actually hold, because licence terms change at renewal and a policy built on last year's agreement may permit something this year's does not.
Working with retail data? See NRS Insights data solutions or contact NRS Insights.