Category management is a marketing strategy in which groups of products are managed together by a single business unit. Category management is often led by a cooperation of manufacturer and retailer who sort the assortment of the points of sale in product categories as seen by the consumers in order to best place and present products in store.

Crowdsourcing defines the distribution of parts of a project to an undefined and self-selected large group of people. The term is composed out of the word crowd and the word outsourcing, whereby a crowdsourcing activity distinguishes itself from outsourcing projects since the mass of people delivering the needed ideas, services or content is undefined and most often generates on a voluntary base. Crowdsourcing projects most expanded in the digital world thanks to online communities. Companies profit thereby of the mass-intelligence. Based on this concept, the word crowdworker was born to define such people taking part of crowdsourcing projects.

The word crowdworking is composed of the two English words „crowd“ and „working“. Over an online platform a company offers jobs, that can be done by a mass of people. The jobs can be very diverse and range from checking the direction of traffic flow over text corrections to product checks in stores. As soon as the jobs are available online, people who are interested in them, just have to click on them and complete the tasks. For every completed job they get paid a certain amount of money.

A facing is when a product in a retail store stays on the front edge of a shelf with its label facing toward the customer. So on a shelf you find several facings, possibly of the same good. For a product you can count the number of facings, meaning the number of identical SKUs facing the customer on the front line of the shelf. Thus this measure represents the amount of shelf space a brand takes up. Given the fact that shoppers are more aware of the products with more facings on the shelf, the bigger this measure, the more sales this product should achieve. This explains why most manufacturers are incline to pay retailers to be granted more facings in the stores. In English, the term facing also defines the act of pulling products on a shelf towards the front, in order to give the impression of a neat and fully stocked retail store.

Field sales are selling activities that take place directly the the point of purchase and are also called outside sales (as in outside of the office environment). Field sales agents, representatives, force, team are people that implement sales strategies at POS.

Geocoding is a process whereby location specific information or geographic coordinates are pinpointed on a map. The name itself derives from the fact that this process assigns geographical coordinates to f.e. an address. Geographical coordinates can vary greatly in accuracy and therefore positioning on a map can be difficult.

Geo-marketing is a geographically specific discipline of marketing. It allows to use data of localized market analysis to optimize a product or brand placement. The theory laying behind this discipline implies that markets have a spacial dimension and that they can vary regionally. Evidence shows that consumers act with similar patterns if they live in the same neighborhood or that specific products can best be sold in specific areas, so for example the sale of toys has a higher performance in neighborhoods with a high density of young families. A Geomarketing analysis answers to questions like: why do some regions have a better potential for our sales-plan? Where do we find our Target and how do we best reach it? Having geomarketing data at their disposal, manufacturers can therefore plan and execute site-specific marketing strategies to best sell their products.

Microjobbing signifies the doing of Microjobs, that are being offered online. The jobs consist of small and less complex tasks, therefore the name Microjobs. In the app the Jobbers can choose independently which jobs they want to complete to earn additional money.

Microjobs are small paid tasks that are distributed per crowdsourcing to so called microworkers. The composition of the term out of the words Jobs and micro suggests the small complexity of the tasks that are most often accomplished either online or per smartphone app.

In Marketing, moment-of-truth (MOT) defines the particular moment when a customer interacts with a brand, product or service and a purchase intention or opinion is thereby formed. The first moment of truth (FMOT) in particular is the specific moment of interaction between a shopper and a product in a store. In this case the customer is confronted with the product placement directly on shelf: this in considered one of the most important marketing opportunity for a brand.

Mystery shopping is used by companies or market research agencies to review the quality of service inside a sample of retail outlets or in the hotel industry. The controls are executed by so called secret shoppers that act anonymously as normal consumers purchasing products or services, therefore gathering important information such as how the quality of the service by the staff was. The feedback of the mystery shopper allows the commissioning companies to get the consumer's view on their business or on the presentation of their products.

The classical definition of out-of-stock is when products on stock cannot satisfy the demand. The most significant type of stockout however is retail out-of-stock, concerning mainly the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. This occurs when a certain product is physically not present at a point of sale this is most evident when the product is not present on the shelf (in this case it is called out-of-shelf and the product might even be on stock but just not visible to the shopper). Stockout situations cause significant turnover losses to the FMCG industry every year. Consequentially, out-of-shelf situations have a high impact on customer loyalty and shopper satisfaction. This is why manufacturers, retailers and supply chains put a lot of effort in to research to identify out-of-stock. The most effective method to identify OOS is retail audit where people “manually” look for gaps on the shelves.

Initial Product placement is the regular presentation of goods on fixed shelf space at the point of sale. In most cases the presented goods are available at the regular retail price.

A Planogram is the visual representation (diagram or drawing) of the placement and quantity of a product on the shelves of a retail store. The Goal of a planogram is to maximize sales and minimize waste of space. Also, comparing planograms can serve as a reference to judge retail performance. The discipline ruling decisions and strategies regarding planograms is called merchandising.

A POI, acronym for Point of Interest, refers to a specific point that someone may find useful or interesting. The term itself is rather unspecific but POIs usually refer to points on a map such as restaurants or landmarks. This enables users of maps and navigation data to find people, places and services they need anywhere. POIs are also relevant for location based directories and are there understood as qualified informations (address, contacts, opening hours) of all public and privately owned businesses, transport, health, education and leisure services.

Point of sale, or point of purchase (POP) from the point of view of the consumers, defines the place where a retail transaction is completed. This can be a mall or a market in general or the checkout area at a retail store in specific. Since sales are made at the point of sale, POS Marketing is given an ever growing importance within sales boost strategies. Since consumers tend to make purchasing decisions direct in the location of the purchase, Marketers base their strategies at the POS to foster impulse purchases.

POP advertisement or point-of-purchase advertising are promotions that are directly at the point of sale. For pop advertisements retailers receive POP materials directly from the manufacturer. These material can includes display materials, special displays, posters, price tags, shelf stoppers, shelf flags, wobblers and much more.

Promotional placing is also referred to as a special offer placement and is a variety of the secondary placement, that takes place when products outside of the initial placing are on sale or are part of a promotion. An example for a promotional placing would be the initial placing of crisps in the snack section and an additional placing in the beer section during the football world cup.

Retail assortment is the entirety of products displayed by a retailer for purchase by consumers. Assortments can be differentiated according to their depth and width. A retailer with a deep assortment displays a big variety of a particular product (for example many different yoghurt flavors), whereas a wide assortment is when the retailer sells many different types of products (for example from diary products, to toys, to personal care products). Decisions regarding the assortment policy of a retail chain influence shopper behavior.

Retail Audit is the on site verification of information on sales volume, sales trend, stock levels and/or effectiveness of promotional activity inside retail stores. The collecting of this information is done by a third party, most commonly a provider from the market research sector. The service might be subscription-based and might include a wide selection of stores where a large amount of data is collected. A specific type of Audit is the compliance audit whereby manufacturers verify if the requirements they have agreed upon with the retailer have been implemented.

Retail execution is understood as the execution of sales strategy at the point of sale. The aim of Retail execution is basically to have the right products in stock, at the right place, at the right time, with the perfect price. These activities include promotional activities, retail audits and proof-of-performance information.

Secondary placement is defined as the presentation of goods in stores other than the regular shelf placing. Often the secondary placings are presented on special displays. The purpose of secondary placings is sales promotion, which is achieved because people come into contact with the products at more than one point in the store. Multiple placings also speak to a wider audience different types of consumers at different locations and can generate impulse purchases. Second placements are strategically used not only by trade marketing managers, but also by decision makers in the retail chains, as this can bring change to the sales atmosphere of a point of sales.

Shopper insights, or consumer insights, are defined as any insight that is necessary to understand the shopper experience and shopper behavior directly at the POP (point-of-purchase). The collection, evaluation and consequence of shopper insights are part of the discipline of shopper marketing. The goal hereby is understanding purchase decisions to influence them directly at the point of sale. The techniques for collecting shopper insights include in-store observations, mobile shopper diaries, interviews at the POS, shop audits.

A Store check is the anonymous visit of a point of sale where the commissioned person checks the condition of the store, answering a list of questions or checking a list of criteria. This can be a useful tool to check whether the retail chain complied with the agreements made between retail chain and the manufacturer, or between franchiser and franchisee. A store check may survey the appearance of the store (cleanliness, neatness, temperature, lighting conditions etc.), the presence and position of products and their merchandising material, compliance to corporate identity, the presence and appearance of the staff.

Uplift measuring is the difference of the response quote between a group of people that have been subject to a marketing campaign and a group of people not subject to that same campaign. Uplift can be used as a predictive model for measuring incremental sales, i.e. the number of sales that result from a sales promotion and that exceed the sales that would have been expected without that specific sales activity.