This page is for a buyer or planner who must judge a single style's own health across a season, not just one number in isolation. At work, a person can check sell-through, or a promotion's own profit, or end-of-season stock, each in a separate spreadsheet, without seeing how they fit together into one decision for the same style. This lesson mainly teaches the money flow: it brings Cedar & Co.'s own hybrid domestic style through all four checks from this course, in order, on one worksheet.
Cedar & Co. buys a domestic T-shirt style with a hybrid structure: 6,000 pieces against its own forecast, plus a smaller 1,000-piece replenishment order held back until early sales are known. This lesson follows that style from its midpoint sell-through check, through a possible promotion, to its own markdown decision, and finally to its end-of-season stock. Without this skill, a buyer treats each of these checks as a separate task instead of one connected story about a single style.
You need: lessons T20-C04-L01 through L04, which cover markdown timing, promotion sizing, terminal stock and recovering value from unused material separately.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: this is the final lesson of Course 4; Course 5 moves upstream to how a retail price is first set.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Markdown | A reduction in the shop price of goods that have not sold as forecast, used to clear the remaining stock. |
| Sell-through rate | The share of stock actually sold within a planned period, used to judge whether a forecast was right. |
| Stock cover | The number of weeks a brand's current stock is expected to last before it runs out, given its normal sales rate. |
| Open-to-buy | A retailer's season budget minus its committed spend: the amount still available to commit to any range. |
| Margin | Profit divided by the selling price, shown as a percentage of what a company sells for. |
| Forecast | A company's own estimate of what it expects to sell, used to decide how much to produce before any specific sale exists. |
The four checks from this course are not four separate tools for four separate styles; they are four points on the same style's own timeline. A midpoint sell-through check decides whether a style needs a markdown or could instead support a promotion. For a hybrid style, that same checkpoint also decides how much of the remaining replenishment to commit. Whatever is bought or held back then shapes the end-of-season stock rate that finally judges the whole season's own buy.
A buyer meets several shapes of this combined check across a normal working year, and each depends on how far behind or ahead of plan a style runs.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A style that stays on plan all season | Sell-through tracks the target closely throughout; no markdown or promotion is needed, and the replenishment order runs as planned. | Not every style needs all four checks in a single season; a healthy style may only need the final end-of-season stock check. |
| A style behind plan at the midpoint | The midpoint check triggers a markdown decision, as in lesson T20-C04-L01, and the replenishment portion is trimmed to reduce further risk. | A markdown decision and a hybrid replenishment decision are made from the same midpoint numbers, not as two separate exercises. |
| A style on plan but with room to grow | The midpoint check instead supports a promotion, as in lesson T20-C04-L02, to build extra volume while sell-through is still healthy. | The same checkpoint that could trigger a markdown can instead support a promotion, depending on which side of the target the style sits. |
| A style with unused raw material once replenishment is trimmed | Cutting the replenishment portion, as in lesson T20-C04-L04, can leave a mill holding material that still needs a recovery decision. | A single buyer's own mid-season decision can create a recovery decision further up the chain, showing how connected the four checks really are. |
Cedar & Co. buys 6,000 pieces of a domestic T-shirt style against its own forecast, plus a 1,000-piece replenishment order held back until early sales are known, a hybrid total of 7,000 pieces if the replenishment is fully committed. At the midpoint, 3,000 pieces have sold against a planned 3,500, a sell-through of 43% versus a 50% target.
Trimming the replenishment order to 500 pieces, based on the weak midpoint check, brings the projected end-of-season stock rate down to 7.7%, closer to Cedar & Co.'s own 5% target than the 12.5% the uncorrected buy produced in lesson T20-C04-L03. The four checks work together: the midpoint sell-through informs the replenishment decision, and the replenishment decision shapes the final end-of-season stock rate.
The methodA common mistake is treating sell-through, promotion sizing, replenishment and end-of-season stock as four separate exercises on four separate days, rather than one connected worksheet. What this costs a buyer who gets it wrong is a missed correction: a markdown decision made without also trimming the hybrid replenishment repeats the same overbuy the markdown was meant to fix, and an end-of-season stock check run without any reference at all to the midpoint decision cannot properly explain why the season ended the way it did. The four checks are only as useful as the connections a buyer actually draws between them, on one worksheet rather than four separate ones.
A single style's own season is one connected story, not four separate numbers. A midpoint sell-through check decides on a markdown or a promotion, and for a hybrid style, that same check decides how much replenishment to commit. Whatever is bought then shapes the end-of-season stock rate that judges the whole season. Running each check in isolation, without carrying one result into the next, misses corrections a buyer could otherwise make in time, such as trimming a replenishment order before it becomes next season's own overbuy.
At the midpoint, Cedar & Co.'s domestic T-shirt style is behind plan. A junior colleague has already placed the 1,000-piece replenishment order in full, arguing that the original forecast should be trusted until the season actually ends.
Here is the note the planner actually sent Cedar & Co.'s buyer:
Should Cedar & Co. reduce the replenishment order now, before it ships, or let the full 1,000 pieces go ahead as already placed? Decide before opening the answer.
Reduce the replenishment order to about 500 pieces before it ships. Two facts already in the note decide this.
First, the midpoint sell-through of 43% is already behind the 50% target, the same signal that triggers a markdown or a replenishment review in lesson T20-C04-L01. Trusting the original forecast without adjustment ignores exactly the information a midpoint check exists to provide.
Second, the trimmed replenishment brings the projected end-of-season stock rate down to 7.7%, much closer to Cedar & Co.'s own 5% target than the 12.5% a full, unadjusted replenishment would produce. The correction is available now, before shipment, at no extra cost beyond adjusting a quantity not yet shipped.
Cedar & Co. should reduce the replenishment order to about 500 pieces now, using the midpoint check to correct the buy while there is still time, rather than letting the original forecast run unchecked to season end.
Using Cedar & Co.'s own illustrative cost price of USD 6.50 a piece:
Letting the full replenishment ship unadjusted would leave an extra USD 3,250 tied up in unsold stock compared with trimming it at the midpoint, cash that the connected worksheet would have protected.
Open the course workbook's "Complete check" sheet. It draws the midpoint sell-through, the markdown or promotion decision, the replenishment commitment and the projected end-of-season stock rate into one row per style, so a buyer sees the whole season's own story at once.
[Download the Markdown and terminal stock worksheet](../../templates/T20-C04-markdown-and-terminal-stock-worksheet.xlsx)
1. A hybrid style has a 4,000-piece forecast buy plus an 800-piece replenishment option. At the midpoint, 1,600 of the 4,000 forecast pieces have sold, against a planned 2,000. Should the full replenishment ship?
2. Why do the four checks from this course need to be connected on one worksheet rather than run as separate exercises?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Markdown | تخفيض السعر | Démarque | İndirim (markdown) | A reduction in the shop price of goods that have not sold as forecast, used to clear the remaining stock. |
| Sell-through rate | معدل البيع الفعلي | Taux d'écoulement | Satış oranı | The share of stock actually sold within a planned period, used to judge whether a forecast was right. |
| Stock cover | تغطية المخزون | Couverture de stock | Stok kapsama süresi | The number of weeks a brand's current stock is expected to last before it runs out, given its normal sales rate. |
| Open-to-buy | الرصيد المتاح للشراء | Budget disponible (open-to-buy) | Alıma açık bütçe (open-to-buy) | A retailer's season budget minus its committed spend: the amount still available to commit to any range. |
| Margin | الهامش | Marge | Marj | Profit divided by the selling price, shown as a percentage of what a company sells for. |
| Forecast | التوقع (توقع المبيعات) | Prévision (prévision des ventes) | Tahmin (satış tahmini) | A company's own estimate of what it expects to sell, used to decide how much to produce before any specific sale exists. |
You now know how to bring markdown timing, promotion sizing and terminal stock together for one style. Course 5 moves upstream, to how a retail price is first set so it can support the whole chain you have just learned to manage. Back to the course map