How It Works

Step 1: We Learn Your Business

Everything starts with understanding where you actually stand. Not where you think you stand -- where the numbers say you stand.

We begin with a comprehensive review of your current financial and inventory position.

• Current year-to-date P&L
• Balance sheet
• Monthly financial statements
• Inventory at class level at current retail price
• Recent sales, markdowns, receipts, and on-order data
• POS system and reporting capabilities
• Class structure information

We analyze your break-even point, your turnover by classification, your margin structure, and your current buying patterns. We identify where cash is trapped, where markdowns are eating into profit, and where the biggest opportunities for improvement are.

Step 2: We Build Your Plan

Once we understand the business, we build the planning infrastructure that will guide every buying and inventory decision going forward.

• Breaking your store into inventory classifications
• Building a customized seasonal selling cycle for each classification
• Creating a monthly open-to-buy plan tied to your actual sales trends
• Forecasting sales, inventories, and markdowns 10 months in advance
• Establishing inventory targets by classification based on stock-to-sales ratios
• Setting markup and markdown benchmarks

We build a customized "merchandising blueprint" for every classification in every store. The system continually monitors and revises each month's performance to create a new merchandise forecast, planned markdowns, and open-to-buy plan.

Step 3: We Keep You On Track

This is the core of the relationship, and it is what separates us from consultants who hand you a report and walk away.

Every month, we:

• Review your financial performance against the plan
• Update the OTB plan with actuals
• Analyze class-level sell-through and turnover
• Identify merchandise challenges, problems, and opportunities
• Adjust the forecast based on current trends
• Review markdowns and clearance strategy
• Discuss cash flow and break-even position
• Provide a prioritized action list for the coming month

We review each classification with you. We look at what sold, what did not, what needs to be marked down, and what needs to be bought. Every meeting ends with a clear set of next steps.

Between meetings, we are available for key decisions. When a vendor calls with a deal, when you need to make a buying decision, when something does not look right in the numbers -- we are a phone call away.