Assortment and Merchandise Planning Articles for Fashion Retail
Articles on assortment and merchandise planning in fashion retail: range plans, size curves, ABC analysis and buy planning. Each one explains the method step by step, with a worked example.
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.
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.
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.
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Assortment Planning and Merchandise Planning
Range architecture, size and colour curves, open-to-buy and in-season monitoring, so the buy follows real demand rather than last season’s habit.
Book a ConsultationAssortment and Merchandise Planning FAQ
Range planning designs the collection: which products, options and price tiers a brand will offer in a season. Assortment planning then decides how that range is split across stores, markets and channels, and how deep to buy each size and colour. In many fashion companies the two terms overlap, so it helps to agree which decisions each plan covers.
Start with last season’s sales and stock by category, option and size. Look at sell-through and margin per option, find the options that sold out early and those that ended in markdown, and plan the next range around that evidence. A simple Excel range plan is enough to begin.
The range plan is built once per season, before buying, and then checked in-season every week or two against sell-through and stock. Size curves and category splits are worth recalculating at least once a season with fresh sales data.