A beach shop is halfway through a 12-week summer. It has sold 37 % of what it bought. A small sale on everything? This sell-through rate calculator shows, item by item, where each one ends the season at its current pace — and what it needs to reach your target.
| Item | Units received | Units sold |
|---|
| Item | Sell-through now | Weeks of stock left | At season end | Needed a week | What to do |
|---|
The calculator runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Yellow rows are behind the target; blue rows sell out before the season ends.
Sell-through = units sold ÷ units received
The sell-through of today says what happened. The pace says what will happen, if nothing changes. The time to change something is while weeks of the season are left.
A beach shop has a 12-week summer. After 6 weeks it has sold 430 of the 1,150 units it bought: a sell-through of 37 %. The target is 80 % by the end of the season.
The owner's first idea is 20 % off everything. Then the owner looks item by item:
| Item | Received | Sold | Sell-through now | Weeks of stock left | At season end | Needed a week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linen shirts | 300 | 150 | 50 % | 6.0 | 100 % | 15.0 |
| Swim shorts | 400 | 120 | 30 % | 14.0 | 60 % | 33.3 |
| Sun hats | 200 | 110 | 55 % | 4.9 | 100 % | 8.3 |
| Beach towels | 250 | 50 | 20 % | 24.0 | 40 % | 25.0 |
The linen shirts end the season sold out, right on time. A discount would give away margin for nothing.
The sun hats sell out in week 10.9, more than a week before the season ends. A discount would only make that earlier. They need a second order, if the supplier can deliver in less than 4.9 weeks.
The swim shorts need 33.3 a week and sell 20: 1.7 times the pace. A markdown now, with six weeks of summer left, can do that.
The beach towels need three times their pace. 20 % off will not do it. The owner moves them to the door, next to the sun hats.
A total sell-through hides four different items. Mark down item by item, and early — the last weeks of a season have the fewest buyers.
One item per row: units received in B, units sold in C. The weeks on sale in J1, the weeks in the season in J2 and the target in J3 (0.8 for 80 %). Then:
=IF(B2=0,"",C2/B2)=IF(C2=0,"",(B2-C2)/(C2/$J$1))=IF(B2=0,"",MIN(C2+C2/$J$1*($J$2-$J$1),B2)/B2)=MAX($J$3*B2-C2,0)/($J$2-$J$1)Sort by F, lowest first: the top rows are the markdowns to start this week. An E smaller than the weeks left means a reorder, not a markdown.
The part of the stock you had that you sold: units sold ÷ units received. If you started with stock, add it to the units received. 200 received and 120 sold is a sell-through of 60 %.
It depends on the item and the week. A season item should be near its target at the season end — often 70–80 % at full price. Halfway through, compare it with half the target, and look at the pace, not only the percentage.
When its pace cannot reach the target in the weeks left. An early, small markdown moves more units than a late, large one, because the season still has buyers. The "Needed a week" column shows how far the pace has to rise.
The same numbers from two sides. Sell-through says what part of the stock you sold. The stock-to-sales ratio says how much stock you hold for each unit you sell.
Units for one item. For a total of many items, use money at one set of prices — all at cost or all at the sales price — or a few expensive items will hide many slow cheap ones.
That is not a success. The sales after the sell-out are lost. If the supplier can deliver before the item runs out, reorder; if not, note the pace for next year's buy.
In Golden Inventory, Purchases by Item gives the units received and Sales by Item the units sold, for any date range. Both are Pro reports. Start on the free plan, no card.