This page is for a buyer who has learned each allocation method separately across this course and must now combine them into a single worksheet that produces a finished, checked allocation for a real reorder. At work, a buyer who understands every method individually but has no single place to apply them together still ends up doing the calculation by hand each time, risking the same rounding and consistency errors this course has already covered one at a time. This lesson mainly teaches the product flow: it walks through building one complete worksheet, row by row, from a retailer's own real data to a finished, store-by-store, size-by-size allocation.
Cedar & Co. has confirmed a second, 600-piece reorder of its T-shirt style. Two of its 12 shops are large enough to calculate individually; the other ten are grouped into one cluster. Real sell-through from the first reorder is now available, replacing the original selling-potential estimate, and every shop's own carton must still reflect the style's own fixed 1:2:2:1 size ratio. Building this allocation by hand, recalculating each piece separately, is exactly the kind of repeated manual work a single worksheet is built to remove.
You need: lessons T21-C01-L02, T21-C01-L03 and T21-C01-L04, covering selling-potential allocation, choosing a method, and reading sell-through.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: this is the final lesson of Course 1; later courses in this track cover replenishment and inventory topics that build on allocation.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Store allocation | Splitting a confirmed shipment quantity across a retailer's own stores or shops, rather than shipping it all to one central point. |
| Store cluster | A group of stores treated as one unit for allocation, because they share a similar level of selling potential. |
| Size curve | The size ratio a style is cut in, used to split an allocation quantity across sizes rather than across stores. |
| Sell-through rate | The share of stock actually sold within a planned period, used to judge whether a forecast was right. |
| Allocation ratio | Each store's own selling potential expressed as a share of the total selling potential across all stores receiving the shipment. |
| Working template | A single reusable worksheet that carries a course's own calculations from raw inputs to a finished, checked result. |
A complete store allocation worksheet lists every store or cluster receiving a shipment as its own row, applies whichever method fits that row, whether selling potential, an even spread, or a cluster share, and then applies a fixed size curve to every row's own resulting total. A final check row confirms that every store's own total, added together, equals the confirmed shipment quantity before anything is packed. This is not a new method; it is the same four methods from this course, entered in one place instead of calculated separately each time.
| What can differ | The shapes you will meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A retailer with a genuine mix of large and small stores | Cedar & Co.'s worksheet has two individual rows for its large shops and one combined row for its ten small shops, clustered together. | A worksheet must let some rows be individual stores and others be whole clusters, side by side in the same table. |
| A style cut in multiple sizes | Every row's own total, however it was calculated, is split again by the fixed 1:2:2:1 size ratio in a separate step. | Size curve is applied after store allocation is finished, never combined into the same single calculation. |
| A reorder with real sell-through available | Cedar & Co.'s worksheet uses each shop's own real sell-through rate from the first reorder instead of the original selling-potential estimate. | A worksheet built once at the season's start should still be updated with real data as it becomes available, not left on its original inputs forever. |
| An export hybrid model like Fairway Stores' own | The same worksheet structure, store rows, a cluster row, a size curve step and a final check, works whether the retailer is domestic or export. | The worksheet's own structure does not change with market or business model; only the numbers entered into it do. |
The buyer enters two individual rows for the large shops, using their own real sell-through rates of 55% and 30% from the first reorder, and one combined row for the ten small shops as a single cluster. The worksheet then applies the 1:2:2:1 size ratio to each row's own resulting total, and a final row checks that everything still adds up to the confirmed 600-piece reorder.
Adding the three rows together, 220 plus 120 plus 260, gives exactly 600 pieces, matching the confirmed reorder before any size curve is applied. Inside large shop A's own 220-piece total, the 1:2:2:1 ratio then splits that quantity into roughly 37 size S, 73 size M, 73 size L and 37 size XL pieces, and the same size split is applied separately inside every other row's own total.
The methodA common mistake is a buyer treating every reorder as a brand-new calculation, rebuilding rows, ratios and size splits from scratch each time, rather than keeping one working worksheet and simply updating its own inputs, such as a new confirmed quantity or a fresher sell-through figure, as each reorder comes in. Rebuilding from scratch invites exactly the errors this course has covered separately: a forgotten cluster, a skipped final check, or a size curve applied inconsistently across rows, because nothing forces the same structure to be followed twice. A worksheet's own real value is not the arithmetic itself, which any one of these methods could produce by hand, but the discipline of always following the same sequence of rows, methods, size splits and a final check, reorder after reorder, without quietly skipping a step under time pressure.
Once you know how to split stock by selling potential, how to choose the right method, and how to read real sales to update an estimate, the last step is putting all of that into one sheet you use every time, rather than starting from nothing on each new reorder. List every store or group of stores as its own line, pick the right way to split stock for each line, apply the size split inside each line's own total, and check the whole thing adds up before anything gets packed. Keep the same sheet and update only the numbers.
The worksheet is finished: two individual rows for the large shops, one cluster row for the ten small shops, a size curve applied inside every row, and a final check confirming the totals add up to 600 pieces. Delta Garments' merchandiser asks whether the worksheet alone is enough to start packing.
Is this worksheet, on its own, a complete packing instruction for the factory? Decide before opening the answer.
Yes, provided every row shown here already carries its own size split, not just its own store-level total. A complete worksheet answers both questions a factory needs.
First, the worksheet's own store-level totals, 220, 120 and 260 pieces, already add up to the confirmed 600-piece reorder, the check this course has stressed from lesson T21-C01-L02 onward.
Second, if each of those totals has already been split by the fixed 1:2:2:1 size ratio, the factory has everything it needs: how many pieces per store or cluster, and how many of each size within that total.
A worksheet missing either piece, a store split without a size split, or a size split that does not reconcile back to 600, is not yet complete, whatever its totals appear to show.
Using this lesson's own illustrative figures:
Leaving out the small-shop cluster's own row entirely would mean Delta Garments packs only 340 of the confirmed 600 pieces, leaving 260 pieces, the ten small shops' own combined share, unaccounted for until someone notices the shortfall against the confirmed reorder, exactly the kind of gap a completed worksheet's own final check row is built to catch before packing ever starts.
Open the course workbook's "Complete allocation" sheet. It combines the store rows, cluster grouping, size curve and final check into one reusable structure, ready to update with a new confirmed quantity and fresh sell-through data before every single future reorder is actually packed.
[Download the Store allocation worksheet](../../templates/T21-C01-store-allocation-worksheet.xlsx)
1. What does a completed allocation worksheet's own final check row confirm?
2. A worksheet has three rows totalling 580 pieces, but the confirmed reorder is 600 pieces. What does this mean?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Store allocation | توزيع المحلات | Répartition entre magasins | Mağaza tahsisi | Splitting a confirmed shipment quantity across a retailer's own stores or shops, rather than shipping it all to one central point. |
| Store cluster | تجميع المحلات | Grappe de magasins | Mağaza kümesi | A group of stores treated as one unit for allocation, because they share a similar level of selling potential. |
| Size curve | منحنى المقاسات | Courbe de tailles | Beden eğrisi | The size ratio a style is cut in, used to split an allocation quantity across sizes rather than across stores. |
| 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. |
| Allocation ratio | نسبة التوزيع | Ratio de répartition | Tahsis oranı | Each store's own selling potential expressed as a share of the total selling potential across all stores receiving the shipment. |
| Working template | نموذج عمل | Modèle de travail | Çalışma şablonu | A single reusable worksheet that carries a course's own calculations from raw inputs to a finished, checked result. |
You have completed Course 1: Allocation Fundamentals. You can now decide what allocation adds beyond open-to-buy and a season plan, calculate a selling-potential allocation, choose the right method for a given shipment, read sell-through to adjust later shipments, and build a complete allocation worksheet. Back to the course map