The new line form, explained

A new line form, also called a new-line submission or new-line proposal, is the structured document a retailer requires before a buyer will consider stocking your product. It converts your pitch into the fields the buyer's systems and category process need: pricing, margin, barcodes, case configuration and a launch plan. The form is a filter as much as an application; it lets the buyer compare you against every other hopeful on identical terms.

Retailers run range reviews roughly every six months, and the form is your entry ticket to one. Miss the window or submit a half-filled form and you wait for the next cycle. The buyer is not reading it as a story. They are checking whether the numbers work for their category, whether you can supply reliably, and whether ranging you is worth displacing something already on shelf.

Every retailer's form differs, but the core fields are consistent. Expect cost price, your invoice price to the retailer, and recommended retail price, the RRP the buyer uses to calculate their margin, roughly 25 to 45 percent by category. Expect case configuration, the units per carton and cartons per pallet, plus GS1 barcodes at unit, carton and pallet level. Expect a promotional plan and your trade spend offer.

The form also asks for the commercial case: expected rate of sale, the category gap you fill, launch support, and any marketing you will fund. Trade spend, the rebates, promotional funding and co-op you pay the retailer out of gross sales, commonly runs 10 to 25 percent. Buyers read these fields to model the deal, not to admire your brand. Incomplete or vague answers here are the single most common reason a submission stalls.

An incomplete form sinks because the buyer cannot build the internal business case without every field. A buyer does not range on their own authority alone; they take your submission to a category or trading meeting and defend it. Missing a margin, a barcode or a promotional plan means they cannot model the deal, so they set it aside and move to a submission that is ready.

Buyers process hundreds of these each cycle against limited shelf space. Gaps read as risk. A vague case configuration signals fulfilment problems ahead; a missing trade spend offer signals you do not understand the economics; no promotional plan signals a product that will sit and not sell. Each gap gives the buyer a reason to say not yet, and they have plenty of other options that give them no reason at all.

The honest truth is that a buyer champions the submissions that make their own job easy. Every unanswered field is work you have pushed onto them, and in a competitive review they will not do it for you. Answer completely and you remove reasons to reject.

The commercial case is the part that turns a complete form into a ranged product. Beyond the numbers, the buyer needs a clear answer to one question: why does stocking you make the category more money? Frame it around incremental sales, bringing a new shopper or a higher price point, not cannibalising what is already there. Show you understand their margin, their trade spend expectation and their rate-of-sale threshold.

Give the buyer the language to defend you upward. That means a realistic first-year forecast, a launch and promotional plan with dates, and a clear trade spend offer they can bank. It means DIFOT confidence, delivered in full and on time, because a buyer who ranges you and then faces supply failures wears the blame internally. The stronger your case, the less political risk they carry by backing you.

Be honest in the case. Inflated forecasts get remembered when the product underperforms, and chargebacks, deductions the retailer takes off your invoice for service or compliance failures, typically 1 to 5 percent of invoice value, punish overpromising. A credible, conservative case a buyer can trust beats an ambitious one they cannot.

Complete the form by modelling the economics before you write a single field. Build your pricing waterfall from RRP down through retailer margin, trade spend, chargebacks and your own cost of goods, and confirm you still make money at the volume the buyer expects. If the model says you lose money at their margin, the honest answer is not yet, and it is cheaper to learn that now.

Then make every field specific and internally consistent. Your case configuration must match what your fulfilment can actually pick and ship; your promotional plan must match the trade spend you have offered; your forecast must match your production capacity. Buyers cross-check, and one contradiction undermines the whole submission. Prepare for the EDI build, electronic data interchange for orders and invoices, which can take months, and for a first purchase order landing one to six months after a ranging win.

Getting a new line form right is where a ranging pitch is won or lost, and it rewards preparation over polish. If your product touches therapeutic or supplement claims, those are scoped to TGA specialists; the retail and fulfilment half, readiness, buyer case, GS1, EDI and warehousing, is separate work. For imported goods, the retail half runs alongside your customs broker, who remains importer of record.

Built for Retail has ranged brands as the agent into Chemist Warehouse, Woolworths, Coles and Priceline, including Dr Pickles, on Woolworths and Coles shelves today, Smile Makers, on Priceline and Chemist Warehouse, and Australian Glow, on Priceline, the founder's own brand, disclosed on a register of interests. Past rangings never promise yours; the buyer decides.

The Retail-Readiness Sprint is a fixed fee of 15,000 dollars for a single retailer, or 25,000 dollars multi-retailer, about four weeks, modelling your real trade spend, the pricing waterfall, the review calendar and the compliance gap. You keep the model, and sometimes its answer is not yet. Use the contact form on this page.