Retail · Beauty
Vendor promo funding wasn’t covering the margin given away.
This marketing & margin audit identified $41k in wasted annual spend in a Retail business — evidenced, senior-reviewed, and delivered in 5 days.
The business
A bricks-and-mortar beauty retailer ran frequent in-store promotions co-funded by its brand partners, on the understanding that vendor support covered the cost of the discounts. Promotions drove strong footfall and sell-through, and because the vendor funding arrived as agreed, whether it actually covered the full margin given away in each promotion was never reconciled.
What triggered the audit
Promotional periods drove volume but dented margin more than the vendor funding seemed to offset. The audit reconciled the margin actually surrendered in each co-funded promotion against the vendor support received, testing whether the funding genuinely covered the discount or merely softened it.
What the audit found
The vendor funding wasn’t covering the margin the promotions gave away. Deals were being negotiated and executed on the assumption that partner support offset the discount, but when the audit reconciled them line by line, the depth and volume of the promotions frequently exceeded the funding — so the retailer was absorbing the shortfall on every over-run promotion. Additional givebacks, staff time and markdown on promotional stock widened the gap further. Because the vendor money arrived as agreed and sell-through looked strong, the uncovered portion was invisible; nobody checked the actual margin math against the actual funding. Reconciled properly, the retailer was quietly absorbing roughly $41k a year of promotional margin the vendor support never covered.
What we changed
Reconciled every co-funded promotion’s true margin given away against the vendor support actually received, exposing the uncovered shortfall on each deal.
Renegotiated funding terms so partner support genuinely covers the depth and volume of each promotion, rather than only a portion of it.
Set promotion guardrails capping discount depth to what the vendor funding actually supports, so over-runs stop landing on the retailer.
Made co-funded promotion margin a monitored metric, so uncovered givebacks can’t quietly accumulate across the promotional calendar.
The result
$41k a year recovered by making vendor promo funding actually cover the margin given away — a 7× return on the $5,950 Audit + Sprint fee. For any retailer running co-funded promotions, the assumption is the leak: “the vendor pays for it” rarely gets reconciled against the real discount depth. If you’ve never checked promotional margin against the funding received, you may be absorbing a shortfall on every over-run deal. A fixed-fee audit reconciles it in days, so partner promotions stop quietly costing you margin.
From kickoff to signed-off findings: 5 days — inside our fixed 5–7 day window.