Apparel Search › How To › Measure Sell-Through and Decide When to Reorder
Apparel Search How To
Turn your sales numbers into decisions: what to reorder, when to mark down and how to plan the next buy.
Selling a collection is not the end of the job. How fast each style sells tells you what to reorder, what to discount and what to buy next season. This guide shows the few numbers worth tracking and how to turn them into decisions, with simple formulas and examples. If you are still planning your first order, start with how to plan your first production order.
Use the free Merchandising Metrics Calculator for sell-through, weeks of supply, reorder points and markdown math.
For each style, color and size, record the units you received, the units sold and the units on hand, along with the week. Looking at the data weekly shows trends early, while there is still time to act.
Sell-through is the share of the units you had available that have sold. A common formula is units sold divided by (beginning inventory plus units received). For example, selling 620 of 1,000 units is a 62% sell-through. Compare it with what you planned for that point in the season.
Weeks of supply shows how long current stock will last at the current pace: units on hand divided by average weekly sales. With 380 units left and 62 sold a week, you have about 6.1 weeks of supply. It assumes sales stay steady, which is not always true in fashion.
Compare weeks of supply with your supplier's lead time plus a safety margin. If you sell 62 units a week, your lead time is 6 weeks and you want 2 weeks of safety stock, the reorder point is 62 x 8 = 496 units, counting stock on order. Reorder when your stock reaches it. Reordering a fast seller late can mean missing the selling season.
Plan how much you can still buy with the Open-to-Buy Planner.
A style that is selling well behind plan will probably end the season with stock left over. Mark it down early enough to sell it while it is still wanted. Do the math first: a 30% markdown on a $60 item that costs $24 cuts your margin per unit from $36 to $18, so you need to sell about twice as many units to earn the same profit.
Totals can hide problems. One color may sell out while another sits, and the middle sizes often move faster than the ends. Look at sell-through by size and color to learn which sizes and colors your customers actually buy.
Adjust your size scale to match what sold, put more into what works and trim what does not. Then work out how much a style must sell to cover its costs.
Split your next order with the Size Curve & Order Splitter and check break-even with the Collection Break-Even Planner.
Sell-through rate is the share of the units you had available that have sold. A common formula is units sold divided by beginning inventory plus units received.
It depends on the category, the price level, the season and your business, so compare it against your own history and goals instead of a single universal number.
It is how many weeks your current stock will last at the current rate of sale: units on hand divided by average weekly sales.
When your stock, including what is already on order, falls to your reorder point: weekly sales x (supplier lead time + safety weeks).
Open-to-buy is the amount you can still spend on new inventory in a period, after counting planned sales, stock on hand and what is already on order.