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Retail Analytics Blog: Power BI, Excel and Assortment Planning
Practical articles for fashion and retail teams on retail KPIs, sell-through, open-to-buy, pricing, product data and Power BI. Each one gives the formula, a worked example and the mistakes that make two people quote different numbers.
How to Calculate Sell-Through Rate in Retail and Power BI
The sell-through rate formula, the two denominators teams confuse, fashion benchmarks, an Excel formula and DAX for a weekly curve.
Read the articleWeeks of Cover in Power BI: DAX Measure and Formula
The weeks of cover formula, why the averaging window changes the answer, a DAX measure that counts only in-stock weeks, and how cover converts to stock turn.
Weekly Trading Report in Power BI: What to Include
The four pages of a weekly trading report in Power BI, the measures each one needs, the retail calendar underneath it, and the mistakes that make it useless.
4-5-4 Retail Calendar in Power BI: How to Build It
The columns a 4-5-4 retail calendar needs, DAX that builds the table, why Power BI time intelligence breaks on it, and what the 53rd week does.
Like-for-Like Sales in DAX: Comparable Stores and Weeks
How like-for-like sales are defined, the two methods of choosing comparable stores, and the DAX that keeps both years on the same store set.
Star Schema for Retail Sales and Stock in Power BI
How to model retail sales and a weekly stock snapshot in Power BI: two fact tables, three shared dimensions, and why the facts are never joined.
Markup vs Margin in Fashion Retail: Formulas and a Worked Example
Markup is calculated on cost, margin on the selling price. Formulas, a conversion table, a margin calculator and the mistakes that cost retailers money.
Retail KPIs for Fashion Brands: Sell-Through, Stock Turn, GMROI and Weeks of Cover
The retail KPIs a fashion brand should review every week, with formulas for stock turn, GMROI and weeks of cover and two calculators.
Power BI Dashboard Examples for Retail and Fashion Sales
Three Power BI dashboard examples for retail, described page by page: weekly trading, category review and end-of-season review, with KPIs and design rules.
Open-to-Buy in Retail: Formula and an Excel Model Planners Maintain
What OTB in retail means, the open-to-buy formula with a monthly worked example, and how to structure an Excel model that stays accurate.
Row-Level Security in Power BI for Multi-Market Retail Reporting
How to set up row-level security in Power BI so that each market sees only its own figures in one shared retail report.
Retail Pricing Strategy for Fashion Brands: Methods and Examples
Cost-plus, competitive, value-based, psychological and promotional pricing: how fashion brands choose a retail pricing strategy per category.
Five DAX Measures Every Retail KPI Dashboard Needs
Stock cover, full-price share, returns rate, weeks of supply and contribution margin as DAX measures for a Power BI retail dashboard.
PIM vs PLM for Fashion Brands: What Each System Does
PLM manages a garment from design to production; PIM prepares its data for selling. What each system holds, who owns it and when you need both.
How to Build and Read a Retail Price Architecture Before the Season
Entry, core and top price points, good-better-best tiers and how to spot a gap in the price ladder before the buy is placed.
ABC and XYZ Analysis for Retail Assortment in Excel
How to run ABC analysis by sales contribution and XYZ analysis by demand stability in Excel, and use the matrix for assortment decisions.
Product Attribute Standards for Fashion PLM That Work Across Markets
Which product attributes a fashion brand needs in PLM, and how a shared dictionary keeps colour, season and composition consistent in every market.
How to Build a Range Plan in Fashion Retail
What a fashion range plan contains, the steps from brief to buy, and how options, depth and price tiers fit into one range plan template.
Sell-In vs Sell-Through: Why Commercial and Finance Numbers Differ
Sell-in, sell-through and sell-out explained, and why commercial and finance teams report different sell-through figures for the same season.
Markdown Strategy in Fashion Retail: When and How Deep to Discount
How to calculate a markdown, time it by sell-through and choose a discount depth that clears stock without giving away more margin than needed.
How to Build a Retail Size Curve from Last Season’s Sales Data
How to clean sales data of stock-outs, returns and promotions before calculating size ratios per category, market and store cluster.
Assortment Planning Process in Fashion Retail, Step by Step
What assortment planning is, how it differs from merchandise planning and category management, and the steps of the process with an example.
Brand Analyst vs Business Analyst in Fashion: Responsibilities and Skills Compared
What brand analysts, business analysts, merchandise planners and allocation analysts do in a fashion company, and the skills each role needs.
Merchandise Planner Career in Fashion: Skills, Path and How to Start
What a merchandise planner does, how the role differs from a fashion buyer, the skills it needs and the usual path from allocation to head of planning.
Free Open-to-Buy Excel Template and Retail KPI Dashboard Checklist
Two free downloads sent by email: an open-to-buy planning model in Excel and a checklist for a Power BI retail KPI dashboard that a commercial team will actually open.
Retail Analytics Blog FAQ
I write every article myself: Tatsiana Bandziuk, a retail and fashion analytics consultant in Warsaw with about ten years in international fashion retail. The topics come from the questions I work on with buying, planning and product data teams.
New articles are added regularly, and existing ones are updated when a method or a tool changes. Each article shows its publication date, so you can see how current it is.
Yes. Send the question through the contact form, ideally with an example of where it comes up in your work. If it is useful to other retail teams, I will cover it in an article.