Pharotique Category Management Group is an Australian consultancy delivering tailored retail category management, buying advisory, and strategic planning services for small businesses, emerging brands, and independent creators.
FOUNDED BY CHRISTOPHER SALIB
Christopher Salib is a former Senior Buyer at Australia’s largest bookstore. With over 17 years of real-world experience, he brings deep, practical insight to every client engagement.
Throughout his career, Christopher has held leadership roles across iconic Australian and International brands – including Dymocks, Lagardère Travel Retail (Virgin Music, Watermark Books, Relay), TVSN, and Digital Camera Warehouse. His experience spans product categories such as books, computers, electronics, toys, gifts, stationery, travel accessories, music, DVDs and more.
Furthermore, with a career foundation across hands-on shop floor work, warehouse management, and senior head office roles. As a result, Christopher brings multilevel operational understanding of the retail ecosystem – from end to end.
We exist to serve businesses that don’t have a buying department, or full-time merchandise team. Nevertheless, these businesses still want to scale smart, trade professionally, and make data-informed product decisions.
For example, we regularly work with:
A market stallholder seeking retail range guidance
An online-only brand preparing to pitch to stockists
A small shopfront balancing margin and assortment
A self-published author aiming to reach bookstore shelves
In short, if you well a product and want to do it better, Pharotique CMG is built for you.
Moreover, we help you unlock your retail potential, elevate your product mix, and turn complexity into clarity – product by product, shelf by shelf.
CORPORATE
EXPERIENCE
Decades of experience in FMCG, retail buying, and category management across all channels.
TAILOURED
SOLUTIONS
Customised strategies that fit your business size, budget, and unique market position.
COLLABORATIVE
APPROACH
We work alongside your team, building capabilities whilst delivering immediate results.
At Pharotique Category Management Group, client partnerships are at the core of what we do. We’ve proudly supported a wide range of businesses – from self-published authors and market stallholders to independent retailers and eCommerce brands – helping them sharpen their assortments, launch into retail, and grow with clarity.
Whether we’ve helped refine a pricing strategy, build a go-to-market plan, or develop a retail-ready range, every testimonial reflects the real-world impact of tailored, expert support delivered without the cost of hiring an internal team.
If you’re a past or current client and would like to share your experience, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us to be featured on this page.
We’re your outsourced retail buying and category management partner. From product ranging and pricing strategy to promotional planning and supplier coaching – we give independent retailers and suppliers access to the same level of commercial expertise used by major retail chains, without the cost of an in-house team.
Independent and small-to-medium Australian retailers, product-based suppliers and brands, and self-published authors preparing to enter the retail market. If you sell, create, or supply physical products, there’s a service here for you.
It’s the strategy behind what you stock, how you price it, how you promote it, and when you move it on. Done well, every product in your range has a commercial reason to be there – and contributes to your bottom line rather than sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
We provide coaching and advisory support for supplier negotiations – trade term benchmarking, co-op funding, rebates, and line review preparation. We advise and coach; we don’t negotiate contracts on your behalf.
No. We built our services specifically for smaller operators – single-store retailers, online sellers, market stalls, and boutique suppliers. Our packages are structured across different investment levels to reflect that.
Most consulting is delivered online via Microsoft Teams, which means we work with clients across Australia. In-person sessions are available for Sydney-based clients on request.
Yes. Our founder has direct experience as a Senior Buyer for one of Australia’s largest bookstore chains. We prepare authors with the pricing, packaging, pitch strategy, and retail language needed to approach buyers and distributors with commercial confidence.
No. Pharotique CMG is a retail consulting practice. We help you get commercially prepared to present your book to the retail market – but you retain full creative control and publishing rights.
Not at all. Many authors come to us after launch – to improve retail distribution, revisit pricing, or refine their pitch. There’s nearly always something that can be strengthened, and we’ll tell you honestly what that is.