Sell-through rate tells you how much of what you bought has actually sold. Enter what you started with, what came in and what sold to see your rate, how many weeks of stock are left, and what you need to sell each week to hit your target.
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For planning only. It works in units. Take returns out of units sold, and leave transfers out of receipts, before you enter them.
Sell-through rate is the percentage of the inventory you had available in a period that you actually sold. In apparel it's usually measured in units, by style, color or size, over a season or a set number of weeks.
Say a style started the season with 200 units, you received 1,000 more, and 540 have sold. That's 540 / 1,200 = 45 percent sell-through. Eight weeks in, that's 67.5 units a week, and the 660 still on hand would last about 9.8 more weeks at that pace.
It depends on the product and the window you measure. Shopify's retail guide puts a healthy rate for in-season assortments at roughly 70 to 80 percent, suggests aiming above 80 percent for short seasonal drops, and treats 40 to 60 percent a month or quarter as acceptable for evergreen products if turns and margins hold.
| Product type | Typical target | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Seasonal fashion, one buy | Above 80% by the end of the selling window | Little or no reorder, and markdown risk grows every week it sits |
| In-season assortment | About 70 to 80% over the season | Leaves room for broken size runs and a final markdown |
| Core basics on replenishment | About 40 to 60% a month or quarter | Stock is reordered, so turns and in-stock matter more than clearing out |
These are starting points, not rules. Set targets by category from your own history, and check them against your markdown budget.
A style can show 70 percent sell-through while the mediums are gone and the extra smalls haven't moved. The total looks fine, but what's left is in sizes that won't sell at full price. When a style total looks healthy and you're still holding stock, run the calculator for each size or color.
Broken size runs are why many retailers mark a style down once the core sizes sell out, even when overall sell-through is decent.
Sell-through looks back. Weeks of supply looks forward: units on hand divided by average weekly sales. Together they tell you whether to reorder, hold or mark down.
Feed those calls back into your open to buy plan so the next buy reflects what actually sold.
Your retailers' sell-through is your problem too. Slow sell-through at retail turns into markdown money requests, returns and smaller reorders. Many retailers share sales and stock through their vendor portals or the EDI 852 product activity report, which gives sales and on-hand by store. Ask for it, and track it by style the same way you track your own.
Divide units sold by units available, then multiply by 100. Units available is what you had at the start of the period plus what you received during it. 540 units sold out of 1,200 available is 45 percent.
No. Sell-through measures how much of a specific buy sold in a period. Turnover measures how many times average inventory sold over a year, usually in cost dollars. Sell-through is better for judging a seasonal buy, and turnover for judging the business.
Units, for most apparel decisions. Dollar sell-through gets distorted by markdowns, because a unit sold at half price only counts half as much.
That you bought more than customers wanted at that price, in that window, or in those sizes and colors. Check whether it's the whole style or just a few sizes before you mark it all down.
Weekly during the season for anything you can still act on, like reorders, transfers and markdowns. Monthly or quarterly is fine for basics on replenishment.
Plan six months of sales, markdowns and inventory, and see what you can still buy.
Open the calculatorWork out wholesale and retail prices and see what a markdown does to everyone's margin.
Open the calculatorHow brands report available stock to dropship retailers, and why stale feeds cause oversells.
Read the guideFactory price plus duty, freight and fees, so you know what each unit really cost.
Open the calculatorWe look at how buys are planned against what actually sells, by size and color, and set up a weekly sell-through review that catches problems while you can still act.
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