Cedar & Co., a domestic brand with 12 shops, runs a Make to Stock reorder programme with Delta Garments for a denim style, illustrative and modelled on Order B's own five-pocket, 12 oz denim construction, in reorder batches of 1,000 pieces on a 4-week production cycle. Every week, Cedar & Co.'s planner opens a dashboard that can display dozens of figures: stock counts by store, sales by day, sales by size, returns, staff hours, footfall. Not every number on that screen changes what the planner does this week. This lesson names the small, specific set of KPIs a retail planner actually needs to review every week to run a Make to Stock reorder programme well, and separates them from the far larger set of numbers a dashboard can produce but nobody actually needs weekly.
You need: the general idea of a KPI as a number tied to a named decision (Track 17, Course 4), and the general idea of stock cover and sell-through rate. Lesson 6.1 is useful preparation.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: checking the data behind a KPI before trusting it (lesson 6.3), and building a complete retail planning KPI worksheet (lesson 6.4).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| KPI (key performance indicator) | A measured number that a business tracks regularly because it is supposed to support a specific decision. |
| Stock cover | The number of weeks a brand's current stock is expected to last before it runs out, given its normal sales rate. |
| Sell-through rate | The share of stock actually sold within a planned period, used to judge whether a forecast was right. |
| Markdown | A reduction in the shop price of goods that have not sold as forecast, used to clear the remaining stock. |
| Full-price sell-through | The sell-through rate measured only on stock sold before any markdown was applied. |
| Open-to-buy | A retailer's season budget minus its committed spend: the amount still available to commit to any range. |
| Review cycle | The regular interval, such as monthly, at which a business checks its KPIs and closes or updates its actions. |
A dashboard can calculate almost any number on a weekly basis, but a weekly review cycle only needs the KPIs whose value changes what the decision owner does before the next review. Stock cover changes the reorder decision this week if it is close to the production lead time. Sell-through rate this week changes a markdown-timing decision if it is running far from plan. A number that would produce the same decision whether it is checked weekly, monthly or seasonally does not need a place in the weekly review; it can be checked on whatever cycle actually matches when someone would act on it.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Make to Stock versus Make to Order | Cedar & Co.'s MTS programme reviews stock cover weekly because a reorder can still be triggered inside the cycle; an MTO buyer such as Northline Apparel reviews cumulative production progress weekly instead, because the order is already fixed. | An MTS business reviews KPIs that can still change quantity; an MTO business reviews KPIs that can still change timing. |
| Domestic versus export retailer | Cedar & Co. reviews its own 12-shop stock cover weekly from its own point-of-sale system; an export chain such as Fairway Stores reviews the same kind of KPI, but often with a longer data lag between a store sale and head office seeing it. | The review cycle only works if the KPI's data is current enough to still support a decision within that cycle. |
| Early season versus late season | Early in a season, sell-through rate against plan matters most, since there is still time to reorder; late in a season, markdown rate and full-price sell-through matter more, since a reorder can no longer help. | The same KPI catalogue is reviewed differently depending on how much of the review cycle is still ahead. |
| Buyer side versus factory side | Cedar & Co.'s own planner reviews sell-through and stock cover to decide whether to trigger a reorder; Delta Garments reviews cumulative pieces produced against the reorder batch to decide whether the 4-week cycle will be met. | The same review cycle supports two different decision owners looking at two different KPIs from the same underlying order. |
Cedar & Co.'s planner does not review every number the dashboard can produce each week. Three KPIs are reviewed: stock cover across the 12 shops, weekly sell-through rate against the illustrative forecast for this style, and full-price sell-through, which shows whether sales are still happening at full price or only once markdown has already started. Stock cover tells the planner how many weeks remain before the shelves run out. Sell-through rate tells the planner whether the current pace matches the forecast the 1,000-piece batch was built on. Full-price sell-through tells the planner whether demand is genuine or only markdown-driven, which changes whether a reorder should repeat the same price point.
The worked numberA common mistake is treating a rising sell-through rate as good news on its own, without checking whether the rise coincides with a markdown. A style whose sell-through jumps only after its price drops is not showing stronger underlying demand; it is showing that a lower price sells stock, which is true of almost any product. Reordering a full batch on the strength of a markdown-driven sell-through rate risks repeating a 1,000-piece batch that only sells at a reduced price, eroding the margin the reorder programme depends on. The fix costs nothing extra: read full-price sell-through beside overall sell-through every single week, so a genuine rise in demand is never confused with a rise that a price cut alone produced. A planner who checks both figures together catches the difference before committing the next batch, rather than after the margin has already been given away on stock that only moved once it was marked down.
A dashboard can show dozens of numbers every week, but only a few of them actually change what a planner does before the next reorder decision. Stock cover shows how many weeks of stock are left. Sell-through rate shows whether sales are on pace with what was planned. Full-price sell-through shows whether that pace is genuine or only happening because the price was cut. When stock cover gets close to how long a reorder takes to arrive, the decision cannot wait, and this week's review has to trigger it.
It is Monday morning, and Cedar & Co.'s planner opens the weekly review. Stock cover for the denim style has dropped from 6 weeks to 4 weeks since last week's review, driven by stronger-than-forecast weekend sales. Delta Garments' production cycle for the next 1,000-piece batch is also 4 weeks. Full-price sell-through this week is 78%, close to last week's 75%, with no markdown active on this style.
Should the planner trigger the next 1,000-piece reorder today, or wait for next week's review to confirm the trend? Decide before opening the answer.
The planner should trigger the reorder today, not wait for next week's review.
1. Stock cover (4 weeks) now exactly matches the production cycle (4 weeks), meaning there is already zero safety margin; waiting one more week would push stock cover below the time needed to replenish it. 2. Full-price sell-through (78%) confirms the sales pace is genuine, not markdown-driven, since no markdown is active on this style, so the demand behind the drop in stock cover is real. 3. Waiting for next week's review to "confirm the trend" would use up the only week of stock cover remaining before the shelves actually run out, since the review cycle and the production lead time are the same length. 4. The cost of waiting is a stock-out across all 12 shops for up to a week, while the cost of triggering today is only the normal cost of running the reorder batch as planned.
Against the reorder batch's own illustrative value at the same shop price (1,000 x USD 19.90 = USD 19,900), one week of stock-out risk equals roughly a quarter of the batch's own retail value, entirely avoidable by triggering the reorder on the week the KPI review already justified it.
Use the T20-C06 Retail planning KPI worksheet. Its "Weekly KPI review" sheet records stock cover, sell-through rate and full-price sell-through for each review, alongside the production lead time it is compared against, so the reorder trigger point is visible in the same place every week, the exact reading this lesson worked through for Cedar & Co.
[Download the Retail planning KPI worksheet](../../templates/T20-C06-retail-planning-kpi-worksheet.xlsx)
1. Why does this lesson say a KPI only belongs in a weekly review if it can still change this week's decision?
2. Why did Cedar & Co.'s planner decide to trigger the reorder immediately rather than wait for next week's review?
3. A different style has stock cover of 6 weeks and a production lead time of 4 weeks, with full-price sell-through steady at 70%. What should the weekly review conclude?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KPI (key performance indicator) | مؤشر الأداء الرئيسي | Indicateur clé de performance (KPI) | Temel performans göstergesi (KPI) | A measured number that a business tracks regularly because it is supposed to support a specific decision. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Full-price sell-through | معدل البيع الفعلي بالسعر الكامل | Taux d'écoulement au prix plein | Tam fiyattan satış oranı | The sell-through rate measured only on stock sold before any markdown was applied. |
| 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. |
| Review cycle | دورة المراجعة | Cycle de revue | İnceleme döngüsü | The regular interval, such as monthly, at which a business checks its KPIs and closes or updates its actions. |
You now know which KPIs a retail planner reviews every week. The next lesson teaches how to check the data behind any one of those KPIs before acting on it, using an export hybrid account handled through an agent. Back to the course map