This page is for an agent, a buyer, or a retail planner who needs to say whether a style is truly growing from one season to the next, not just selling more because more stores now carry it. This lesson mainly teaches the money flow: it compares two seasons of Order A sold through a hybrid selling model, Northline Apparel's own shops together with its wholesale sales to Fairway Stores, and shows why the comparison only works when the same stores are counted both times.
Meridian Sourcing, the agent that earns a 5% commission on the wholesale value of Order A, tracks how Order A's own style performs season after season in the same 40 Fairway Stores locations. Without like-for-like growth, a rise in total pieces sold could simply mean Fairway Stores opened more shops, telling nobody whether the style itself is actually more popular than it was a year before.
You need: no previous lesson, though lesson T20-C01-L01 introduces the five core calculations briefly and is a useful start. A basic idea of what a percentage is is enough to begin.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: the five core calculations introduced briefly (lesson T20-C01-L01), sell-through rate and stock cover in depth (lesson T20-C01-L02), and assembling every calculation into one reference sheet (lesson T20-C01-L05).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Like-for-like growth | The change in sales of the same style, in the same set of stores, between two comparable periods, excluding any stores opened or closed since the last comparison. |
| Store base | The specific set of stores counted in a sales comparison; it must stay the same in both periods for a like-for-like comparison to be valid. |
| Hybrid selling model | A brand that sells through more than one route to market at once, for example wholesale and its own direct retail, often at different prices. |
| Agent | An independent business that is paid a commission for arranging or managing an order on behalf of whichever side hired it. |
| Commission | A payment to an agent, normally a percentage of the order value, agreed in advance in the agency agreement. |
Like-for-like growth takes pieces sold in a fixed set of stores in one period and compares them with pieces sold in the exact same set of stores in a comparable earlier period, excluding any stores that were not open, or that have since closed, in either period. This keeps the comparison honest: a chain that opens ten new stores will naturally sell more pieces in total, but that rise says nothing about whether the style itself is more popular in the stores that were already trading a year before. Only a fixed store base, counted the same way both times, produces a growth figure worth reporting.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A hybrid brand selling wholesale and through its own shops at once | Northline Apparel sells Order A wholesale to Fairway Stores and also through its own shops, so like-for-like growth must be tracked separately for each route, since a rise in one does not mean a rise in the other. | Combining both routes into a single total can hide a decline in one route behind growth in the other, leaving neither figure useful on its own. |
| A retailer's own store base changing between two seasons | If Fairway Stores opens five new locations this season, those five must be excluded from the like-for-like calculation until a full comparable period exists for them too. | Including new stores in a like-for-like figure overstates growth, since the new stores had no sales at all in the earlier period to compare against. |
| An agent tracking growth for commission purposes | Meridian Sourcing tracks like-for-like growth in Fairway Stores' own shops to judge the health of the wholesale relationship, even though its own 5% commission is fixed to the wholesale value of the order, not to the retailer's own like-for-like figure. | An agent with a fixed commission rate still benefits from monitoring like-for-like growth, since a style trading well in the same stores season after season is more likely to generate a reorder that the agent also earns commission on. |
| A domestic brand with its own shops only, no wholesale route | A local brand such as Cedar & Co., selling only through its own 12 shops, calculates like-for-like growth on that single store base without needing to separate a wholesale route at all. | Fewer routes to market make the like-for-like calculation simpler, but the same rule, a fixed store base counted the same way both times, still applies. |
Northline Apparel sells Order A both through its own shops and wholesale to Fairway Stores, a hybrid selling model. Meridian Sourcing focuses on Fairway Stores' own 40 locations, unchanged between the two seasons being compared. Last season, those 40 locations sold 8,300 pieces of the comparable style in the first six weeks. This season, the same 40 locations sold 9,000 pieces of Order A in the first six weeks, illustrative sales figures kept for teaching purposes only. No new Fairway Stores locations opened between the two seasons, so the full 9,000 and 8,300 pieces both belong to the same fixed store base.
Fairway Stores' own 40 locations sold 8.4% more pieces of the style this season than last season, a genuine like-for-like growth figure because the store base stayed fixed at 40 locations both times. Meridian Sourcing's own commission of USD 6,000 is calculated from the wholesale value of the order and does not move because of this like-for-like growth figure directly, though a style growing like-for-like is more likely to support a future reorder that would itself carry a further commission.
The methodA common mistake is comparing this season's total pieces sold across every Fairway Stores location with last season's total, without checking whether Fairway Stores opened or closed any locations in between. If Fairway Stores opened five new locations this season, part of any rise in total pieces sold simply reflects those five new locations selling the style for the first time, not existing stores selling more of it. What this costs an agent or a buyer who reports the wrong figure is real: a like-for-like growth figure inflated by new stores can lead Northline Apparel to overestimate genuine demand for Order A's style and commit to a larger reorder than the existing stores alone can actually sell through.
Like-for-like growth compares the same set of stores in two periods, so that opening or closing stores never gets mistaken for the style itself becoming more or less popular. A brand selling through more than one route to market at once, wholesale and its own shops, must track like-for-like growth separately for each route, since one route can grow while the other falls. An agent's own commission, tied to the wholesale value of an order, does not move directly because of like-for-like growth in a retailer's own shops, but a style that is genuinely growing like-for-like is more likely to justify a reorder that the agent also earns commission on. Reporting a rise in total pieces sold without checking whether the store base changed produces a growth figure that cannot be trusted.
Fairway Stores opened five new locations this season, in addition to the 40 locations that were already trading last season. Meridian Sourcing prepares a season report for Northline Apparel comparing this season's total pieces sold across all 45 locations with last season's total across the original 40 locations.
Here is the line from Meridian Sourcing's first draft report:
Is the 16.9% figure in this report a valid like-for-like growth figure? Decide before opening the answer.
No, the 16.9% figure is not a valid like-for-like growth figure, based on two facts already in the report.
First, the two seasons being compared use two different store counts, 45 locations this season against 40 locations last season. The five new locations had no sales at all last season, so any pieces they sold this season are being counted as growth when they are simply new stores trading for the first time.
Second, the correct like-for-like comparison must use only the 40 locations open in both seasons. Of the 9,700 total pieces sold this season, 9,000 were sold in the original 40 locations and 700 in the five new locations; the like-for-like growth figure for the original 40 locations alone is 8.4%, not 16.9%.
The corrected report should state like-for-like growth of 8.4% for the original 40 locations, separately from the 700 additional pieces sold in the five new locations, which are new business, not growth in the existing stores.
Using the figures from Meridian Sourcing's report:
An 8.5 percentage point overstatement in reported growth could lead Northline Apparel to plan a reorder sized for demand that the original 40 stores are not actually generating on their own, since a genuine 8.4% like-for-like growth supports a smaller reorder than a reported 16.9% growth would suggest. Meridian Sourcing's own USD 6,000 commission on a reorder is only secure if the reorder itself is sized correctly, which depends on the growth figure being read correctly in the first place.
Open the course workbook's "Like-for-like growth" sheet. It records each season's own pieces sold, the store count in each season, and a check for whether the store base changed, then calculates like-for-like growth using only the stores common to both seasons. Enter a different pair of seasons' own figures to see how the same store-base check applies to any hybrid or wholesale-only comparison.
[Download the Retail maths reference workbook](../../templates/T20-C01-retail-maths-reference-workbook.xlsx)
1. Fairway Stores' own 40 locations sold 8,300 pieces last season and 9,000 pieces of Order A this season, with no change in store count. What is the like-for-like growth, and why is it valid?
2. A brand's own 20 shops sold 6,000 pieces last season. This season those same 20 shops sold 6,900 pieces, and 4 new shops sold a further 800 pieces. What is the correct like-for-like growth figure?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Like-for-like growth | نمو المتاجر القائمة | Croissance à magasins comparables | Aynı mağaza büyümesi | The change in sales of the same style, in the same set of stores, between two comparable periods, excluding any stores opened or closed since the last comparison. |
| Store base | قاعدة المحلات | Base de magasins | Mağaza tabanı | The specific set of stores counted in a sales comparison; it must stay the same in both periods for a like-for-like comparison to be valid. |
| Hybrid selling model | نموذج بيع مختلط | Modèle de vente hybride | Karma satış modeli | A brand that sells through more than one route to market at once, for example wholesale and its own direct retail, often at different prices. |
| Agent | وكيل | Agent | Acente | An independent business that is paid a commission for arranging or managing an order on behalf of whichever side hired it. |
| Commission | عمولة | Commission | Komisyon | A payment to an agent, normally a percentage of the order value, agreed in advance in the agency agreement. |
You now know how to calculate a season's own like-for-like growth. The final lesson brings margin, markup, sell-through rate, stock cover, average selling price and like-for-like growth together into one complete reference sheet for a domestic hybrid buyer. Back to the course map