--- title: "Co-op advertising, payment terms, minimum orders: what retail actually asks for | Spreat" description: "Co-op advertising contributions, payment terms, minimum orders and listing fees explained: what retailers ask of brands, why they ask for it, and how the items add up to a payment made before anything sells." url: "https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/retail-terms-explained" language: "en" --- [Back](https://spreat.com/en/stories?tag=industry) - Retail & insights # Co-op advertising, payment terms, minimum orders: what retail actually asks for The terms in a listing conversation sound like detail and are the real calculation. What each item means - and what they add up to. 29 July 2025 Translated from German [Read the original version](https://spreat.com/stories/industry/konditionen-im-handel) ![Four items of trade terms that fall due before the first sale](https://spreat.com/media/images/stories/konditionen-im-handel/cover-en-800.webp) When a retailer buys your goods they take on a risk - and take securities in return. Those are called co-op advertising, payment terms, minimum orders and sometimes a listing fee. Each item on its own sounds like a negotiating detail. Together they are the amount you pay before a single unit has sold. ## Co-op advertising contribution A contribution from the brand towards advertising and placement: a leaflet page, a secondary display, a newsletter, sometimes simply a percentage of purchase volume. It is the most flexible item and therefore the one most talked about. How solid the return is varies. A leaflet page can be checked; a flat percentage “for marketing effort” cannot. Ask specifically what you get for it, and have it written down. ## Payment terms The period after which the retailer settles your invoice - 30, 60, sometimes 90 days, often with a discount for paying earlier. For the retailer that is liquidity; for you it is pre-financing: you have produced and delivered, the money comes later. For a small brand this is the underestimated item. Sixty days on a delivery that has already tied up capital is two months in which your money works for somebody else. ## Minimum order The quantity the retailer orders at minimum - or that you must deliver for the terms to apply. It makes logistics plannable and is exactly the item on which a cautious test fails: anyone wanting to try twenty units in three shops is often told it does not work below two hundred. ## Listing fee A payment for being taken into the range, regardless of whether anything sells. Common in grocery and with large chains, rare in small-format retail. Where it is asked for, it is the most honest item: it says openly that the space costs something. None of these items is unfair. They are the price of somebody else taking on your stock risk. The only question is whether you want to pay that price before you know whether your product works in physical retail. ## What remains when nobody buys If the store does not buy, the basis for all four items falls away - it carries no stock risk to insure itself against. What remains is a commission that only falls due once something sells. That is not free either. What does apply instead is set out in [what it costs to be in someone else's store](https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/brand-in-someone-elses-store); how the four routes differ overall, in [the four routes a brand takes into retail](https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/routes-into-retail). A payment from the brand towards advertising and placement at the retailer - as a lump sum, as a percentage of purchase volume, or against a specific service such as a leaflet page. It is only solid with a named service attached. It varies too much for a figure that holds - by sector, retailer size and what is given in return. If you need a benchmark, take it from two or three real offers rather than from a rule of thumb. Yes, and it is expected. The room is greatest where you can offer something that removes risk from the retailer - a smaller first order, a right of return, a commitment to resupply. Then it is the wrong door. For a first test you need a route that works without a minimum quantity - otherwise you finance the insight with goods that stay in the warehouse. Work out what is left. Store commission, Spreat fee, what is left for you - per product, with your numbers. [To the brand calculator](https://spreat.com/en/brands/pricing) Written by [Mattis Klöpperon LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattis-kloepper/) Co-founder and managing director Share this article ## More stories - [![Weeks instead of months into physical retail, and what a brand's risk really costs](https://spreat.com/media/images/stories/schnellster-weg-in-den-einzelhandel/cover-en-800.webp) - Retail & insights - Product ## The fastest route into physical retail - and what it really costs a brand With Spreat, the brand carries the stock risk. That is true. But how big it is can be put in euros - and set against the routes where the retailer takes on the risk and gets paid for it. Read the story](https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/fastest-route-into-retail) - [![Four steps instead of buying stock: how much work the brands' goods take in a store](https://spreat.com/media/images/stories/aufwand-fremde-ware-im-store/cover-en-800.webp) - Retail & insights - Product ## How much work the brands' goods take in a store Space, staff time, return shipping: the brands' goods do not come for free. Here is what a store really does for them - and which work falls away in return. Read the story](https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/work-brand-goods-in-store) - [![Eight questions from Reddit and forums on consignment, commission and stock without buying it](https://spreat.com/media/images/stories/reddit-fragen-kommission-marktplatz-store/cover-en-800.webp) - Retail & insights ## The marketplace in the store: what retailers and brands ask on Reddit and in forums Eight questions about consignment, commission and stock without buying it, as they appear on Reddit, in German seller forums and on gutefrage - with the community's answers and what Spreat made of them. Read the story](https://spreat.com/en/stories/industry/reddit-questions-consignment-in-store-marketplace) ## And how about you? Store or brand - the way in is a different one. Tell us which side you are coming from. [I have a store](https://spreat.com/en/stores) [I have a brand](https://spreat.com/en/brands)