The Retail
Strategy Brief.
Frameworks, diagnostics, and field-tested perspectives on the intersection of Merchandising, Planning, and Finance. Written for operators, not theorists.
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OTB: The Silent Margin Killer Most Retailers Never Diagnose
Why your Open-to-Buy process is probably the single biggest source of unplanned markdown exposure — and how to fix it.
S&OP: The Missing Link Between Your Marketing Team and Your Planning Team
Most retailers run Marketing and Planning as separate functions with separate KPIs. Here's why that's a margin problem — and how a proper S&OP process closes the gap.
5 articles
OTB: The Silent Margin Killer Most Retailers Never Diagnose
Most retail planning teams treat OTB as a constraint to manage around. The best ones treat it as a precision instrument. Here's the difference — and why it costs brands millions.
S&OP: The Missing Link Between Your Marketing Team and Your Planning Team
Marketing drives demand. Planning manages supply. When these two functions don't talk to each other, you get stockouts on promoted items, excess inventory on everything else, and a margin structure that looks worse every quarter.
Markdown Optimization: Protecting Gross Margin Without Killing Sell-Through
Every markdown is a confession. A confession that the buy was wrong, the timing was off, or the demand signal was missed. But markdowns are also inevitable — the question is whether you take them strategically or reactively.
Allocation Engines: Ending the Manual Guesswork in Core Product Management
The allocation analyst is one of the most undervalued — and overworked — roles in retail planning. They're making hundreds of micro-decisions per week that collectively determine whether your best stores have the right product. There's a better way.
The Fractional CPO: Why Growing Retail Brands Are Rethinking Planning Leadership
A full-time VP of Planning costs $250–350K all-in. For a brand doing $50–200M in revenue, that's a significant fixed cost for a function that may not need full-time senior leadership year-round. There's a more capital-efficient model.
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