Solutions · Retailers & buyers
Buy it right, before the season decides for you.
Buying is a series of commitments made months early on incomplete information, and every one of them shows up later as either sell-through or markdown. This is the evidence layer under those calls.
- desks this covers, each with its own brief
- 4
- specialists the work is split across
- 4
- studios it runs through
- 3
The one job this page is about
Read the trade every week against the buy you already committed.
- How often it comes round
- Every Monday, all year - on a buy placed nine months earlier.
- Skip it once
- You learn the curve was wrong from your own sell-through, which is six weeks after the markdown could have been avoided.
The curve
The middle sold in three weeks. The ends are the markdown.
A size curve is a shape, and the expensive mistake is a symmetrical buy against a customer who is not symmetrical.
The shape of the mistake, not a benchmark: a symmetrical buy against demand that is not. No units or totals - yours is computed from your own sell-through.
Where a buy goes wrong
Three decisions, and what each one is usually missing.
None of these is a data problem. The number exists; the context around it does not.
The open-to-buy is set before the range is resolved, so the money is allocated against a plan and spent against a line sheet. The two are reconciled after the fact, if at all.
The reconciliation is the deliverable nobody schedules, which is why it is done in a spreadsheet the week before the review.
Last season's sell-through is the only evidence in the room, and it describes what you bought rather than what the customer wanted. A style that sold out at week three was under-bought, and the report reads it as a success.
Sold-out is ambiguous. Full-price sell-through against the buy depth is the number that separates a hit from a shortage.
Markdown is treated as an outcome rather than a decision, so it is analysed at the end of the season instead of being priced into the commitment at the start.
A buy is really two numbers: what you expect to sell at full price, and what you have already agreed to lose.
What is on the sheet
A buy is a set of these, committed months early.
Four registers committed in one appointment, each carrying its own sell-through risk.
01The line-up
02The PDP shot
03How it is actually worn
04The material story
The problem
What this actually costs you.
You commit the buy nine months before you learn if it was right.
Every unit is bought on a forecast, and the correction is a markdown.
What we do
The trend is scored on its own curve, so you commit against a slope and a date.
- Quantified trend forecast
- Trend velocity and search signals
- Multi-angle research sweep
The competitor dropped the price and you found out from your own sell-through.
They have had weeks of it, and you react into a price they already set.
What we do
Assortment and price are diffed over time, so a ladder move surfaces as a change.
- Competitor price and assortment tracking
- Multi-retailer price check
- Watchlist and alerts
The weekly trade read is rebuilt by hand every Monday.
The same pull, joins and deck each week, late the moment it is finished.
What we do
The reads behind markdown and replenishment arrive as a document, on a schedule.
- Scheduled runs
- Spreadsheets
- Everything packaged together
How retailers & buyers use it
One ask each. The real file back.
Every document below opens. None of them is a mockup.
ExcelBuying
Plan the pre-season buy against the open-to-buy.
Open the excel
ExcelMerchandising
Set the size curve and the allocation across doors.
Open the excel
ExcelTrading
Read the week and decide markdown or replenishment.
Open the excel
ExcelPlanning
Model the markdown before it is taken, not after.
Open the excel
Categories they trade in
What actually runs
Reading a market and planning a buy are different jobs, so they are not handed to the same seat. One system, 102 tools and 222 playbooks behind it.
Quantified trend forecast
Trend velocity and search signals
Multi-angle research sweep
Competitor price and assortment tracking
Multi-retailer price check
Watchlist and alerts
Scheduled runs
Spreadsheets
Everything packaged together
Handed to
- Buyer / Merchandiser
- Retail Ops Analyst
- Finance Analyst
- Brand Analyst
Get started
One brief in. Deliverable out.
Start with the question a retailers & buyer actually has, and leave with the file.