Retailer P&L Mirror
See your pricing decisions through the retailer's eyes, and discover why what's good for your P&L might destroy theirs.
You fund 42% of your retailer's margin.
Your buyer makes money on your product in two completely separate ways, and you pay for one of them.
Front margin is what they earn by selling it: the shelf price, less the invoice you sent them. Back margin is the money you hand over afterwards. Rebates. Promo allowances. Listing fees. The funding behind every deal.
On the base case in the sandbox below, back margin is $1.70M of the $3.99M your retailer makes on this SKU. You wrote a cheque for 42% of their margin.
Here is what makes that worth an hour of your time. Their buyer is not graded on the 42% you fund. Buyers are graded on front margin, the part they earn themselves. So you can be the most generous supplier in the category and still be the one whose price increase gets rejected, because the money you gave lands on a line nobody in the room is measured on.
A trade term moves money. It does not make money.
Give the retailer another point of trade terms and the two of you do not become richer together. Every dollar you give up arrives on their side of the table, so their total gross margin rises by exactly what your contribution falls by. The **joint pool**, the profit the two of you share on this product, does not move by a single cent. You can watch this happen. Drag the Trade Terms slider from one end to the other and the Joint Pool tile sits perfectly still, at $4,860,856, the whole way. The only levers that genuinely change how much money there is are the ones that change something real: what it costs you to make the product, how many units sell, and what the shopper actually pays at the till.
In a negotiation, giving is only a transfer, and a transfer makes nothing. What actually matters is which line of their P&L your money lands on, because the same dollar is worth far more to you when it lands on the line the buyer is judged on. That is why the fold, moving a point from off-invoice to on-invoice, buys you goodwill you would otherwise have paid for twice.
What you'll take away
The retailer pays the invoice price, not your pocket price. Only your on‑invoice discount lowers their bill. Everything else you give them is settled afterwards and lands on a different line of their P&L.
Retailers earn in two places, and the buyer only gets graded on one. Front margin comes from selling your product. Back margin is money you pay them. On this SKU you fund 42% of the margin they make, and their buyer is measured on the other 58%.
A trade term moves money. It does not make money. Give a point away and the joint pool of profit does not grow by a cent. It just sits somewhere else. Watch the pool tile refuse to move while you drag the trade‑terms slider.
The fold is the move that gets you out of a front‑margin fight. Shift a point from off‑invoice to on‑invoice and the retailer's front margin rises, their total margin is untouched, and it costs you nothing.
Promote harder and you buy more of their margin, not more of their loyalty. Deeper and more frequent deals push your funding into their back margin and tip the relationship toward dependence on you.
Master these concepts before diving into the simulator
5 concepts- Purpose
- Read the same scenario from the retailer's side of the table, so you can negotiate on their numbers instead of guessing at them.
- How to use
- Seven levers, in three panels. The retailer's P&L renders below: four diagnostics, the joint pool, seven KPI tiles, and the full cascade from consumer sales down to net margin.
- What to watch
- The Joint Pool tile first, because a trade term will not move it. Then Front Margin Health, which is the only number the buyer is graded on. Hover any diagnostic for its bands.
Retailer P&L Mirror
Move your price, your trade terms and your promo plan, and watch where the money lands on the retailer's board. Two things are worth watching above all: the Joint Pool, which tells you whether you created value or just moved it, and the front/back split, which tells you how much of their margin you are paying for.
Base Case (Editable)
Units/year
% of consumer sales. The four-wall cost of selling it: staff, space, shrink, energy. Not central logistics or head office.
What it costs you to make and move a unit. Never touches the retailer's P&L.
How much volume moves when your list price moves.
Future State Levers
Manufacturer Pricing
Your list price. It sets the invoice the retailer pays, so it lands straight on their front margin unless they pass it through to the shelf.
What it costs you to make a unit. It never touches the retailer's P&L, so nothing on their panel moves. Watch the Joint Pool instead: cost inflation shrinks the money the two of you share, and you absorb all of it.
Trade & Shelf Price
The total trade rate you pay. Watch the Joint Pool while you drag this: it does not move. A trade term is a transfer, so it decides which side of the table the money sits on, never how much of it there is.
The ticket price the shopper sees. The retailer owns this lever, and the gap between your list move and their shelf move is the pass-through that decides who absorbs your price rise.
Promo & Volume
How far the price drops on promoted units. Deeper deals hand more money to shoppers, and more promo funding to the retailer's back margin.
How much of your volume sells on deal. Push it up and your promo funding grows on its own, with no rate having changed, and it lands in their back margin. Past about half, the deal price has become the real price.
Volume changes that have nothing to do with price: distribution gains, category growth, a competitor arriving. It scales both P&Ls together.
Retailer diagnostics
Four banded health checks on the retailer's view of this scenario
The Joint Pool: what the two of you make between you
Drag Trade Terms. This number will not move.
A trade term is a transfer. Every dollar you hand over off the invoice arrives on their side and leaves yours, so the pool is exactly the size it was. The levers that genuinely change how much money exists are the ones that change something real: your cost of goods, the volume that sells, and the price a shopper actually pays.
Retailer KPIs
Retailer P&L Comparison
| Line Item | Base | Future | Δ $ | Δ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Sales (net of deal markdown) | $11,261,200 | $11,261,200 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Cost of Goods (at the invoice price) | -$8,966,100 | -$8,966,100 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Front Margin | $2,295,100 | $2,295,100 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Off-Invoice Rebates | $330,330 | $330,330 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Promo Allowances | $566,280 | $566,280 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Other Terms | $235,950 | $235,950 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Promo Funding | $566,280 | $566,280 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Back Margin (trade income you fund) | $1,698,840 | $1,698,840 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Total Gross Margin | $3,993,940 | $3,993,940 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Direct Store Operating Costs | -$1,351,344 | -$1,351,344 | $0 | 0.0% |
| Net Margin (four-wall, SKU level) | $2,642,596 | $2,642,596 | $0 | 0.0% |
Retailer P&L Waterfall ($K): Consumer Sales to Net Margin
Front vs Back Margin Composition: Base vs Future
Who Earns the Retailer's Margin: Future Scenario
Retailer Margin Sensitivity to Shelf Price
Retailer Per-Unit Economics
The shelf ticket is not what the retailer collects, because a share of units sells on deal. And the invoice price is not your pocket price: only your on-invoice discount comes off the bill they pay.
Keep it hypothetical or generic. No confidential figures, no company data: a made-up scenario teaches the same lesson. When you click Analyze, the AI reads this context together with your current sandbox settings.
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The Retailer's Ultimatum
You run the CrunchField account at a major grocer. The buyer has told you that a front margin of 20.4% is below what they need from a branded biscuit, and they want it above 25% by the next negotiation. Your numbers: list price $4.29, a quarter of volume in a premium pack that lists at 1.4x, so a blended list price of $4.719. Total trade rate 17%, of which 5 points are on-invoice. Shelf ticket $5.99, and 30% of units sell on deal at 20% off. Two million units a year. Every number in this Challenge is one the Sandbox computes at its defaults, so check the diagnostics panel before you answer.
What is the retailer's front margin per unit?
Both P&Ls, on one screen
You have now read the same scenario from both ends of it. Integrated RGM Lesson 1 gave you your own board. This lesson gave you theirs, and the four retailer sentinels read every lever you pull through the buyer's eyes rather than yours.
But you have been reading them one at a time, and a negotiation does not work like that. The configuration that lifts your contribution is often the one that pushes their Front Margin Health out of ADEQUATE, and you will not see the collision until both boards are in front of you at once. That is the next lesson: all eight sentinel bands on a single canvas, so you can find the configurations where both sides can actually sign.
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