A pet shop sells 10 products. Four of them bring 85 % of the sales. The other six share the rest. This ABC analysis sorts your items into three classes — A, the few that hold most of the value; B, the middle; C, the many that hold little — from a CSV you paste or open.
The item, then its yearly value — or the item, its yearly units and its unit cost. A comma, a semicolon or a tab between the columns; a header line is skipped.
| Class | Items | Share of items | Value | Share of value |
|---|
| # | Item | Value | Share | Cumulative share | Class |
|---|
The analysis runs in your browser. Your CSV is not sent anywhere, not even when you open a file.
ABC is not an abbreviation. The letters are the names of three classes of items: A, the few items that hold most of the value; B, the middle; C, the many items that hold little. ABC analysis puts each item in one class, so you can give the most care to the items that matter most.
The item that crosses a line stays in the upper class. With this rule, class A always reaches 80 % of the value, even when one large item crosses the line.
This is the rule of the planning in Golden Inventory, which classes items by gross profit. The calculator and the template use the same rule.
A pet shop sells 10 products. The owner counts the whole stock once a month and orders when a shelf looks low. It takes a full Sunday.
She runs an ABC analysis on the sales of the last year, 100,000 in total:
| # | Item | Yearly sales | Share | Cumulative share | Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dog food 20 kg | 38,000 | 38.0 % | 38.0 % | A |
| 2 | Cat food 10 kg | 24,000 | 24.0 % | 62.0 % | A |
| 3 | Cat litter | 14,000 | 14.0 % | 76.0 % | A |
| 4 | Dog treats | 9,000 | 9.0 % | 85.0 % | A |
| 5 | Bird seed | 5,000 | 5.0 % | 90.0 % | B |
| 6 | Leads and collars | 4,000 | 4.0 % | 94.0 % | B |
| 7 | Aquarium filters | 2,500 | 2.5 % | 96.5 % | B |
| 8 | Toys | 1,500 | 1.5 % | 98.0 % | C |
| 9 | Fish food | 1,200 | 1.2 % | 99.2 % | C |
| 10 | Grooming brushes | 800 | 0.8 % | 100.0 % | C |
Four products hold 85.0 % of the sales. The dog treats cross the 80 % line — from 76.0 % to 85.0 % — and stay in class A. The owner decides: count class A every week, class C twice a year.
But the leads and collars rack was empty twice last year, and each time customers left without buying. Leads and collars are class B by sales. Are they really the middle?
She runs the same analysis on the gross profit of the year:
| Item | Yearly gross profit | Class by sales | Class by gross profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cat food 10 kg | 6,000 | A | A |
| Dog food 20 kg | 5,700 | A | A |
| Cat litter | 4,200 | A | A |
| Dog treats | 4,050 | A | A |
| Leads and collars | 2,200 | B | A |
| Bird seed | 1,500 | B | B |
| Aquarium filters | 1,000 | B | B |
| Toys | 750 | C | B |
| Fish food | 420 | C | C |
| Grooming brushes | 400 | C | C |
Dog food sells the most, but at a thin margin. Leads and collars sell less and keep more than half of each sale. By gross profit they are class A — one of the five items the shop cannot run out of. The toys move up to B.
Choose the value that matches the question. Sales tell you what moves; gross profit tells you what pays.
The free ABC analysis template has 500 rows, the A and B lines in two cells, and a summary sheet. It needs no sorting. To build it yourself, put the yearly value in column C, from row 2 to row 501, and the A line (80 %) in J2 and the B line (95 %) in J3. Then:
=C2/SUMIF($C$2:$C$501,">0")=(SUMIF($C$2:$C$501,">"&C2)+C2*(COUNTIF($C$2:C2,C2)-1))/SUMIF($C$2:$C$501,">0")=IF(N(C2)<=0,"C",IF(E2<$J$2,"A",IF(E2<$J$3,"B","C")))The SUMIF adds the values larger than the item; the COUNTIF adds the equal values in the rows above, so two items with the same value never share a place. Fill the three formulas down, and the classes stay right when you add or change a row.
Nothing: ABC is not an abbreviation. The letters are the names of three classes. A holds the few items with most of the value, B the middle, C the many items with little value.
Any yearly value, the same for all items: the sales of a year, the gross profit of a year, or the units of a year × the unit cost (the classic annual usage value). The class of an item can change with the measure — see the worked example.
They are the usual lines, not a law. Change them in the calculator or in the template. With 70 % and 90 %, class A gets fewer items.
Count class A often and check its stock and its orders every week. Order class B on a normal cycle. Keep class C simple: larger, less frequent orders and a count once or twice a year.
ABC sorts by value. XYZ sorts by how steady the demand is: X steady, Z irregular. Used together, an AX item — high value, steady demand — is the easiest to plan tight.
ABC applies the 80/20 rule to stock: a small share of the items holds a large share of the value. The shares in your own data are rarely exactly 80/20.
Golden Inventory (Pro plan) classes your items by the gross profit of your own sales history with the same 80 % and 95 % lines. Planning then searches the best reorder levels for class A and B items and replays them on your history; class C items keep the formula levels. The plan table filters by ABC class. Start on the free plan, no card.