Arnau Forasté Sans
Operations Director / COO of Artyplan
What are the most common mistakes when tendering POS materials?
The five mistakes that occur most often when tendering POS materials are: comparing unit price instead of total campaign cost, failing to audit the supplier’s actual logistics capabilities, leaving replenishment out of the tender specifications, splitting the campaign among several suppliers without a single accountable party, and making a decision based on a print sample instead of a test under real in-store conditions. None of these five mistakes is noticeable when the contract is signed. All of them become apparent during the implementation week. I have been receiving POS tenders from the supplier side for more than twenty years. I have seen impeccable tender specifications, and I have seen specifications that guaranteed problems from the very first page. Before going any further, a necessary disclosure: I manage business development for an integrated supplier, so several of these recommendations work in my favour. That is why each mistake is accompanied by a way to verify it with any supplier, including mine. If a recommendation cannot be audited, it should not be included in a tender specification. That is the standard of this article.
The context that makes each mistake costly: half of promotions are no longer profitable
Before looking at the mistakes themselves, it is worth setting the scene. The data from Spain’s FMCG sector is uncomfortable:
- Nielsen analyses reported by AECOC have been showing for years that around half of promotions in Spain are not profitable (the most widely cited historical figure is 52%, compared with 49% in Europe).
- The situation has not improved: Distribución y Consumo magazine (Mercasa, 2024) puts promotional efficiency in Spain at 31%, below the European average.
- And the recent trend points in an even worse direction: according to NIQ’s Full View Observatory (2026), manufacturer brands maintain promotional pressure equivalent to 23% of their sales, while efficiency has declined over the past year.
In an FMCG market worth €131 billion in 2025 (NIQ, January 2026), those percentages represent enormous amounts of promotional spending that fail to generate a return.
And what does POS material have to do with this? Rosario Pedrosa, Demand Area Manager at AECOC, sums it up in a sentence that should be displayed in every trade marketing department:
“The same promotion, implemented well or badly, produces different results.”
The promotional mechanics, the discount and the negotiation with the retailer are decided upstream. But execution —making sure the material arrives, is installed, lasts and is replenished— is the variable that separates a profitable promotion from one that adds to that 52%. And execution is purchased precisely when tendering POS materials.
With that context in mind, here are the five mistakes.
Half of promotional spending does not generate a return
Nielsen / AECOC (historical series) · Mercasa, Distribución y Consumo 2024 · NIQ 2026
below the European average
Mistake 1: comparing unit price instead of total campaign cost
The most common mistake of all. The bid comparison spreadsheet has a unit-price column, the three suppliers are ranked from lowest to highest, and the first one wins. The problem is that unit price is the most visible part of the cost and the one that has the least impact on the final result. The actual cost of a POS campaign is made up as follows:
| Component | Typical share of total cost | Is it included in the bid comparison? |
|---|---|---|
| Production (printing + finishing) | 40-55% | Yes, always |
| Logistics, picking and kitting | 15-25% | Sometimes, but poorly itemised |
| In-store installation | 10-20% | Rarely with the same scope across bids |
| Replenishment and incidents | 5-12% | Almost never |
| Cost of failures (materials not installed, stores not supplied) | Variable, potentially the highest | Never |
(Indicative distribution based on Artyplan’s experience with multi-site campaigns; the exact weighting varies depending on format and channel.)
A supplier that is 8% cheaper in production but fails in 5% of stores ends up being more expensive than the supplier that submitted the higher quote. I have never seen that calculation included in a bid comparison spreadsheet, and it should be the first row.
How to avoid it: request a complete breakdown by cost item, with the same scope defined for all bidders, and add a “cost per correctly implemented store” row, which is the only metric that combines price and execution.
What the tender compares vs. what the campaign actually costs
Indicative distribution · experience from Artyplan multi-site campaigns (proprietary methodology)
The cost of failures: the item with no percentage
Stores not implemented, failed installation visits and urgent reprints. It does not appear in any bid and can determine whether the promotion ends up in the 52% that fails to generate a return.
Mistake 2: failing to audit the supplier’s actual logistics capabilities
The tender specifications request quality certificates, printed samples and references. They almost never ask for what actually predicts the outcome: how the supplier is going to prepare 900 different kits and what happens when something goes wrong at store number 614.
Data from the OSA Barometer (AECOC + NIQ) provides a useful benchmark for POS campaigns in supermarkets and FMCG: Spanish retailers recover from an out-of-stock situation in an average of 2.7 days, the fastest rate in Europe. That is the pace that POS execution has to match. A supplier whose only response to an incident is “we will reprint it and ship it in two weeks” is operating at a different pace from the stores it serves.
How to avoid it: include three specific questions in the tender specifications. Where is the replenishment stock stored during the campaign? What is the response time for incidents in each region? Who handles the picking, in-house staff or a subcontractor? Vague answers to these three questions are the best predictor of problems that I know.
Mistake 3: leaving replenishment out of the tender specifications
This mistake is a consequence of the first one. Because replenishment makes the bid more expensive, no bidder includes it unless it is required. And because nobody includes it, the comparison looks cheaper than the campaign will actually be.
The realities of the point of sale are non-negotiable: materials break, get wet, disappear or are hit by shopping trolleys. In campaigns involving more than 500 stores, budgeting between 8% and 12% of additional material for replenishment is not caution, it is statistics. (Internal Artyplan working ratio for multi-site campaigns.)
When replenishment is not included in the contract, it later appears as an urgent extra, charged at an urgent rate, with the campaign already compromised. The saving made during the tender process is paid back with a surcharge.
The solution lies in how the tender specifications are written, not in negotiation: replenishment must be included as a mandatory cost item, with a minimum percentage, response time and responsible party. And one golden rule that I also apply when I am responding to tenders myself: if a bidder claims that replenishment will not be necessary, that is the bid to reject —mine included.
Mistake 4: splitting the campaign without a single accountable party
Printing with one supplier, logistics with another, installation with a third. On paper, each part goes to the cheapest specialist. In practice, there are three contracts and nobody is accountable for the final result.
When the material arrives late at the distribution centre, the printer blames the carrier, the carrier blames the warehouse and the installer charges for the failed visit. Each one has fulfilled their contract. The campaign has not.
There is an underlying trend that makes this mistake even more significant. The Economic Study by neobis, the graphic communications association, has recorded a progressive consolidation of the sector over the past two decades: the number of small companies is falling and business volume is becoming concentrated among larger companies, in a market worth around €5.7 billion. In other words, suppliers capable of integrating production, logistics and installation exist and are accounting for an increasing share of activity, precisely because the B2B market has learned that fragmentation is expensive.
How to avoid it: tender for the result (“N stores implemented by date X, with incidents resolved within Y days”), not for the individual components. There may be subcontracting underneath, but there should be a single contractual party accountable for the entire project.
Mistake 5: deciding on the basis of a print sample instead of a real-world test
The sample submitted with the bid is printed on the best paper, handled with gloves and transported in a rigid folder. The actual piece will travel in a truck, wait in a stockroom and be assembled by someone with three minutes to spare and no tools.
I have seen contracts awarded because of the vibrancy of a corporate red on a flat sample, for materials that were later installed on a curved structure under store lighting, where that same red looked completely different. And I have seen beautiful displays on the meeting-room table that did not withstand a week of contact with shopping trolleys once installed in-store.
The alternative costs very little and delays the award by one week: ask the finalists to produce a small pre-series installed under real conditions —in a pilot store or a replica— and assess it after seven days, not on the day it is installed. It is the test that eliminates the most bids and the one that no supplier with a solid product is afraid of. We have lost tenders because of it ourselves, and we still recommend it: material that cannot survive the pilot week would not have survived the campaign either.
The tender checklist that prevents all five mistakes
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Comparison metric: cost per correctly implemented store, not unit price.
-
Mandatory breakdown: production, logistics, installation and replenishment as separate cost items with the same scope for all bidders.
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Replenishment in the contract: minimum percentage, response times and cost allocation clearly defined.
-
Single accountable party: responsible for the final result, with penalties linked to successfully implemented stores rather than units delivered.
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Pilot test: carried out under real conditions before awarding the contract and assessed after seven days.
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Logistics audit: stock location, picking capacity and a written incident-management protocol.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of promotions are not profitable in Spain?
52%, according to Nielsen data reported by AECOC, compared with a European average of 49%. Promotional efficiency in Spain stands at around 31%, according to the analysis published in Distribución y Consumo (Mercasa, 2024). The quality of in-store execution —including POS implementation— is one of the variables that separates profitable promotions from the rest.
How should price be compared in a POS tender?
By using the cost per correctly implemented store, not the unit price. The unit production price represents between 40% and 55% of the actual cost of a campaign; the remainder consists of logistics, installation, replenishment and incidents, which are often left out of the comparison but ultimately determine the result.
How much replenishment material should be required in a POS tender?
Between 8% and 12% of the base volume for campaigns involving more than 500 points of sale, with response times and the responsible party defined in the contract. Leaving replenishment out of the tender makes the bid comparison look cheaper but increases the actual campaign cost, because incidents will still occur and will then have to be resolved at urgent rates.
Is an integrated supplier better than several specialists for a POS campaign?
For multi-site campaigns, having a single party accountable for the result reduces execution risk. Splitting the project between a printer, logistics operator and installer dilutes accountability: each party can fulfil its own contract while the campaign as a whole fails. According to neobis, the Spanish graphic communications sector, worth around €5.7 billion, has been consolidating for two decades around larger suppliers capable of providing an integrated service.
Is a printed sample enough to evaluate a POS supplier?
It is useful for evaluating print quality, but not for assessing how the material will perform in-store. A reliable evaluation requires a pre-series installed under real conditions and reviewed after seven days, once friction, lighting and handling have had an effect on the piece.
About the author
Arnau Forasté Sans is Operations Director / COO at Artyplan, with a career closely linked to graphic production, technical management and the coordination of teams and processes. His experience covers planning, quality control, large-format printing, logistics and installation, with a focus on ensuring efficiency, traceability and on-time delivery in every project. After taking on production responsibilities at Artyplan Document from 2017, he has led Artyplan’s operations since 2022, coordinating resources, teams and processes to ensure the reliable and professional execution of graphic production projects.
Sources
- AECOC — C84: ¿Cómo hacer promociones más eficientes? (Nielsen data on promotional profitability)
- Mercasa — Distribución y Consumo, vol. 2 (2024): promotional efficiency in Spain
- NIQ — Observatorio del Gran Consumo en España (January 2026) and Observatorio Full View (2026)
- AECOC / NIQ — Barómetro OSA (2024)
- neobis — Estudio Económico del sector de Artes Gráficas (2025)
