Category management software holds the numbers a category team already owns, which are its own shipments and one retailer's scan data. Sena adds the half that decides the category: what shoppers bought across every item in it, and what they say would move them.
Category management assigns each category a role, sets the range against it, and measures whether the category grew. Three properties of the data a category team runs on bend that assignment.
Scan data arrives from the retailers who sell it and covers the outlets those retailers operate. A category role set on that read describes the shoppers who reached those doors.
Volume into the retailer records what was ordered. What sold through, what sat, and what a shopper picked up and returned to the shelf are three different events inside one figure.
Categories are drawn where the planogram and the reporting hierarchy draw them. Shoppers substitute across those lines, so a category defined by the aisle measures a set the shopper treats as two.
Sena is the decision AI with access to real-world data. It records what shoppers bought across every item in the category, including the ones the reporting hierarchy leaves out, and asks those same shoppers what would move them, so a category role rests on the whole category.
Receipts cover every item a shopper considered, so a category reads at the size the shopper treats it.
Purchase is recorded at the till by the person who made it, so sell-in and sell-through are separate.
Every figure holds its market and its outlet type, so one category role opens into the markets behind it.
Category management software is the system a category team runs its cycle on: the category definition, the range, the space, the price and promotion plan, and the measurement that says whether any of it worked. The market splits into two families that share the words and hold different readers.
Sourcing category management groups supplier spend so it can be negotiated, and retail category management groups products so they can be sold.
Category management is the system a category team evaluates, buys, and runs the cycle on. Category management in retail is the discipline that system supports, from the category role through to the shelf.
| Capability | What it returns | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Category definition | The item set the category covers. | Drawn from the aisle, so substitution runs outside it. |
| Range | Which items the category carries. | Ranked on one account's scan data. |
| Space | The facings each item receives. | Allocated on last period's share. |
| Measurement | Whether the category grew. | Reported after the period closes. |
The process runs in eight steps and keeps the same spine: define the category, assign it a role, assess it, set the measures, build the strategy, pick the tactics, put the plan in the market, and review it. Three of the eight rest on evidence from outside the business.
The item set a shopper treats as one category, which is answered by what else went in the basket.
Whether the category builds the trip, defends it, or grows the basket, which is answered by what else those shoppers bought.
Where the category stands per market, which is answered by purchase across the whole set.
Four collected inputs sit behind the reads above, one per market.
| Input | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Receipts | What shoppers bought across the whole category, dated to the day. |
| Store captures | What each outlet carried and listed, and what sat beside it. |
| Geo-verified photos | The shelf as it stood, placed and timed. |
| Stated preference | What shoppers say would move them, so the read reaches past what they bought. |
Three questions sit outside a shipment and scan warehouse, and each one changes the category role.
Real people share what they buy and prefer, under explicit consent. Sena captures it directly at the source, so every figure traces back to where it came from whenever a number comes under question.
Category-wide purchase and stated preference arrive from the same shoppers, and every figure names the market it came from and the week.
Share movement opens into whether the category grew and whether the range held its part of it.
Purchase records separate a heavier buyer from a shopper new to the category this period.
Receipts show whether a lost trip went to a rival item or to a category filed elsewhere.
One figure, set from three inputs, showing how many category questions Sena keeps in view at once.
| SKUs | 600 |
|---|---|
| Categories | 8 |
| Markets | 18 |
Category management built on shipments and one retailer's scan data can report what the account sold and struggles to say whether the category grew. Sena builds on real-world signals captured from the shelf photographed in a real outlet through to the receipt showing what else went in the basket.
Counts purchase across every item in the category, so a trip lost shows where it went.
Reads the shelf as it stood, off images captured in real outlets, so a range decision meets the space it has to fit.
Signal arrives from the consumer network under explicit consent. What would move a shopper comes from that shopper.
Shipment history, scan data, planograms, and price files join over 250+ integrations, so internal reporting meets external purchase.
Each figure carries its market and its capture week, so a category role opens onto the purchases it rests on.
Past planograms, range reviews, and shipment histories load in, covering every cycle the category has been scanned in.
Four teams read the same category, and each one needs a different cut of it before they can act.
The cycle. Needs the category defined by the way the shopper treats it.
The retailer conversation. Needs a category read the buyer accepts.
The trip. Needs what else the basket carried, per outlet type.
The price and promotion plan. Needs the range decided first.
The same category-wide count, read against whatever each industry treats as one choice.
Category role per market, with the substitution set drawn from the basket.
Counter category against own-label, with the switching trips traced.
Category definition across tiers, with trade-in and bundling attached.
Occasion-led category boundaries read from what else the trip carried.
One mechanism, applied per market and per category. Each step is documented, which is what carries a category role through a retailer review.
Receipts across the category return what shoppers bought, item by item and basket by basket, dated.
Sena draws the category at the boundary the basket shows, so the item set matches what shoppers substitute.
Trip and basket evidence settle the role per market, and stated preference covers the items the range has yet to carry.
Most category management software runs on shipments and licensed scan data, which cover the accounts that report and hold zero rows for the outlets that stay outside. Sena covers the category around them.
| Capability area | Typical setup | Sena |
|---|---|---|
| The dataset | Shipments plus one retailer's scan data. | Purchases across the whole category, at the till. |
| A lost trip | A dip in the share line. | The item that received it, at the price paid. |
| Category boundary | Inherited from the reporting hierarchy. | Drawn from what the basket treats as one choice. |
| An unlisted item | Absent. | Stated by shoppers, with the switching point. |
| Outlets outside the reporting set | Estimated. | Captured in the outlet, photographed, and dated. |
| Coverage | The markets the retailer reports. | 190+ countries, resolved per market and outlet type, with the underlying records held by the provider. |
| Evidence in a retailer review | A reported figure. | Open any number onto the purchases behind it. |
Three decisions where category-wide purchase changes the answer.
Separate category growth from share movement, so a flat share reads as the two different results it contains.
Read baskets to find where shoppers substitute, then set the category at that line.
Arrive at a range review with purchase evidence per market, sourced and dated.
An agreed role sets what the category is for. The four decisions below are what a category team runs next.
Every category decision Sena answers, in one place
The discipline, eight steps
Runs the discipline the software supports, step by step.
Explore category management in retail 02The measurement, every cycle
Runs the standing measurement a category team reads every cycle.
Explore category analytics 03Which items the category carries
Settles which items the category carries once the role is agreed.
Explore assortment optimization 04Why the shopper chooses
Answers why a shopper picks inside the category the team runs.
Explore category intelligenceThe walkthrough takes one category in one market, redraws its boundary from basket evidence, and splits a flat share into category growth and range performance while the team watches.
Name the category and the markets it sells in, and we will count what shoppers bought there.