I've sat on the buyer's side of the table at every major UK grocer. The pattern that killed more pitches than anything else was the same: founders walked in with one deck, hoping it'd work for everyone.
It doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is on slide one.
Slide one is a buyer test
Buyers open your deck and decide in the first ten seconds whether you understand them. Slide one is where you tell them: I know what you care about. I've done the work. I'm not going to waste your hour.
Get that wrong and the next 24 slides won't save you.
What Tesco wants on slide one
Tesco is a volume retailer. Their commercial team's job is moving units across 2,800 stores. The buyer scanning your deck is asking three questions:
- Will this brand drive footfall?
- Can the supply chain handle the velocity?
- Where's the price-volume sweet spot?
If your slide one leads with brand story, sustainability credentials, or your Instagram following, you've already lost. Tesco buyers care about your story, but only after they've seen the numbers. Lead with size of prize. Calculate it against their store count, not "the UK". Show RoS at the price tier they actually stock.
What Waitrose wants on slide one
Waitrose is a story retailer. Their buyer is curating, not stocking. The questions are different:
- Does this brand deserve to be in our store?
- Will it tell the right story to our customer?
- What's the sustainability angle?
Lead a Waitrose pitch with your hero stat the same way you'd lead Tesco and the buyer thinks you don't know who they are. The same data is in the deck somewhere — but slide one is brand, founder, mission, sourcing. Commercials come later.
The fix isn't more decks. It's the right one each time.
Most founders try to solve this with a "Tesco version" and a "Waitrose version" of the same template. That's better than one deck, but the buyer still spots it. The cover slide says Tesco but the framing says Waitrose. The "size of prize" stat is calculated against the wrong store count. The proof points were chosen for someone else's pitch.
A deck that wins Tesco isn't a deck that wins Waitrose with the logo swapped. It's a different deck. Different commercial framing. Different proof points. Different language. Different size of prize.
That's what DeckSmith builds. One deck per retailer, each one tailored to what that buyer actually cares about. Not a template with a name change.
If you're pitching three retailers, you need three decks. If you're pitching ten, you need ten. Anything else is a losing strategy.
