Deal (trade funds) management: Transitioning to high-ROI retail partnerships

Dec 12, 2025 • 6 min

Promotional deals account for a large proportion of trade spend for retailers. Yet, they are still managed mainly through cumbersome manual systems and emails. Bingying Lyu, Product Marketing Manager at RELEX Solutions, explains how this manual approach lets revenue slip away, why shared analytics through advanced deal management solutions can lead to true data-driven collaboration between suppliers and retailers, and what retailers facing margin pressures need to do with their deal management processes.

Listen to the full conversation:

Q: How are retailers managing deals and promotions today?

A: (Bingying) For most retailers, managing supplier deals still means juggling multiple spreadsheets, following long email chains, and handling constant back and forth with vendors. Category managers often spend hours tracking the status of their promotions, manually transferring data, and locating information that, in most cases, is dispersed across the business.

A typical promotional campaign involves multiple teams, from merchandising to marketing to supply chain and finance. And all of them maintain their own version of ‘truth’. One team, for instance, might track campaigns in a spreadsheet, and another keeps supplier approvals in an email inbox. When someone has a simple query like, “What were the promotions running last month and their funding utilization?”, it can take hours to piece together the right information to obtain the answer.

Such a fragmented approach can cause serious issues for retailers. It’s error-prone and is often plagued by many duplications of the same information. Deal cycles can be delayed when negotiations are held up, and when critical correspondence remains siloed in inboxes. Consequently, category managers, who should be focusing on strategic decisions, such as choosing promotions that will have the greatest impact on the bottom line, end up spending a large proportion of their time on manual processes.

Learn more: Building a case for investing in promotional planning technology

Q: What are the biggest challenges with managing vendor-funded retail promotions?

A: (Bingying) Indeed, we see that around 70% of retail promotions are vendor-funded. And when such a large share of promotional activity depends on supplier investment, the stakes are extremely high. But several friction points make gaining this investment harder than it needs to be.

To start, there’s often a visibility gap on both sides. Suppliers usually have limited insight into a retailer’s promotional calendar and priorities until late in the planning cycle. This means it’s difficult for them to propose deals that align well with what the retailers actually need. Meanwhile, retailers struggle to maintain a clear view of all incoming supplier offers, related terms, and performance.

Then there’s getting aligned on what success actually looks like, which can be rather tricky. Retailers focus on overall category performance, their margins, and avoiding cannibalization of regular-priced sales. Suppliers, on the other hand, are concerned with volumes and brand exposure.

Finally, with disjointed communication and approval processes, important details about funding commitments, promotional mechanics, and timing get either lost or misinterpreted. When disputes between suppliers and retailers arise over the specifics of agreements or the results of promotions, there is often a lack of clear records for reference.

Learn more: How promotional forecasting drives retail success

Q: What’s at stake when retailers lack visibility of promotional performance and fund utilization across suppliers?

A: (Bingying) There are several ways to look at the cost of poor visibility. On the financial side, retailers may leave money on the table by not fully using available vendor funds, or they may approve promotions that won’t deliver adequate returns. Without clear performance data, it’s difficult to know which supplier deals are profitable once all costs are accounted for, including the impact on store traffic, margins, and the performance of the category.

Strategic planning can also suffer. When it’s not easy to see which promotions have been run in the past, what they achieved, and the remaining available funds, retailers are essentially making decisions in the dark. Category managers end up relying on gut feeling alone, with only incomplete information to go by.

But retailers should also consider the impact on supplier relationships. When they can’t provide vendors with meaningful performance data, it becomes harder to have productive conversations about upcoming future promotions. As a result, suppliers may lose confidence that their investment is being used effectively, which may make them less willing to fund future promotions.

Finally, there’s the audit and compliance dimension. In some markets, regulations require retailers to maintain a clear record of promotional agreements and fund flows. And with manual and fragmented processes, it’s nearly impossible to produce the documentation needed if questions arise.

Q: How does an advanced deal management solution help build mutually beneficial relationships?

A: (Bingying) A modern deal management solution provides a shared workspace where both parties can collaborate more efficiently. They no longer need to exchange countless emails and spreadsheets. Suppliers can submit proposals directly into the planning system and observe their offers throughout the review process. They would also have visibility into how decisions are being made from the retailer’s side.

For retailers, all incoming supplier offers are in one centralized place. This means category managers evaluate all proposals directly against their promotional slots and category targets, helping them make quicker decisions. A clear record of what was proposed, accepted, and the terms of the agreement is created and shared with all parties involved for posterity.

Most importantly, modern deal management solutions shift the supplier-retailer relationship from purely transactional to genuinely collaborative. When suppliers have visibility into promotion history and demand forecasts, they can propose deals that better meet shoppers’ needs. When retailers can share performance data back to suppliers, learnings on what worked and what may need tweaking can help improve future promotions.

Human judgment is still integral to this kind of work. But thanks to automation and more seamless processes, the administrative burden is lifted. So, employees can focus on the bigger picture, such as: “How do we drive overall category growth with promotions?” and “How do we leverage promotions to build our own price image and competitive edge?”

Q: What role do shared data and analytics play in improving promotional negotiations?

A: (Bingying) Shared analytics is the key to successful promotions. When both retailers and suppliers have access to the performance data, their collaboration will be more grounded and productive.

Consider the difference between these two conversations. In the first, a supplier asks for a promotion slot based on their confidence in their products, and the retailer responds with a different offer focused on how similar promotions have performed in the past. Both sides are working from incomplete information and different assumptions.

In the second scenario, the retailer has access to a performance forecast showing sales, profit uplift, and the ROI for promotions. At the same time, suppliers have visibility into a select group of these analytics, meaning the conversation can shift from “I think this will work” to “here’s what the data shows, and here’s how we can build on it.”

Shared analytics helps in several ways. First, it builds trust because decisions are based on data rather than conjecture. Second, it helps identify patterns in the data that reveal opportunities to push new products or promote at a time that neither party would have otherwise considered. And third, it makes it easier to agree on success metrics, reducing the chance of disputes occurring between retailers and suppliers about the outcomes of promotions.

But there’s also a longer-term benefit. The more both parties work together through shared visibility, the better they’ll become at understanding what drives results for each other in unique contexts. This knowledge becomes a valuable asset that improves future promotional planning.

Q: Why should retailers invest in vendor deal management sooner rather than later?

A: (Bingying) Retailers are indeed facing a very challenging environment right now. Consumers remain price-sensitive and are seeking discounts or trading down to lower-priced alternatives. Supply chain costs also haven’t been fully normalized. In this regard, every promotional dollar has to work harder.

The opportunity cost of ineffective deal management compounds over time. If you have underperforming promotions, vendor funding that doesn’t drive sales, and wasted time on manual tasks, they all add up. Also, competitors with better systems in place will gain an advantage and hold the upper hand in their negotiations.

Retailers who invest in modern vendor deal management now will accumulate better data, develop stronger supplier relationships, and build organizational expertise that becomes harder for others to replicate. Those who hesitate may find themselves playing catch-up, without the advantage of valuable insights and favorable supplier relationships.

Of course, the path from manual processes to more streamlined collaboration isn’t traveled overnight. For one, it requires changes to workflows and time to gain supplier buy-in. Therefore, retailers who start that journey sooner will reach maturity faster. And in a market where margins are tight, where promotional effectiveness matters more than ever, a head start will be incredibly beneficial.

Q: What’s one thing you’d want someone to take away from this discussion?

A: (Bingying) You should invest in deal management now to build stronger vendor partnerships and more effective promotions that actually drive traffic, sales, and give you a true competitive edge.

Watch the demo of RELEX Deal Management

Written by

Bingying Lyu

Product Marketing Manager