A seasonal buy plan, signed off in one review
A 14-store apparel buyer had to cut next season's open-to-buy by 12% — and built a sharper plan on two years of live sell-through instead of intuition.
Outcome
−12% OTB absorbed
Network
14 stores · lifestyle apparel
Measured outcomes
−12%
OTB absorbed, no lost bestseller volume
2d → 3h
To refresh sell-through analysis
70/30
Solya recommendations / buyer adjustments
What's wired up
Systems connected
Merchandising system
2 yrs sell-through · SKU×store×week
E-commerce platform
Online sales
Supplier data
MOQs · margin floor
Before · After
Before
A smaller buy, on stale data
After two seasons of weak full-price sell-through, leadership asked buyers to cut next season's open-to-buy by 12%. The data to build a sharper plan existed, but monthly reports took two days to assemble and arrived three weeks stale.
After
One plan, validated in a single review
Solya unified two years of sell-through at SKU × store × week, then proposed a buy plan inside the new budget, the supplier MOQs and the team's margin floor. The team committed a hybrid plan three weeks early — and the network director signed it off in one pass.
The challenge
It was spring 2025. After two seasons of disappointing full-price sell-through, leadership asked buyers to cut next season's open-to-buy by 12%. A third miss would force a rethink of the network's expansion plans.
The team had ten weeks to build a smaller, sharper buy. Every category, supplier and store tier was now open to challenge, and the old playbook — senior intuition plus last year ±X — wouldn't survive that scrutiny.
The data to do better existed, but it never reached the buying table. Sell-through reports were pulled monthly, aggregated, and took two days to build. By the time anyone analysed them, three weeks had passed and the conclusions were half-stale.
A jacket selling out in one store could sit untouched in another for weeks. The spreadsheet only saw "jackets sold OK across the network." Decisions ran on data that was technically available but operationally invisible.
What we changed
Solya unified two years of sell-through at SKU × store × week granularity across every store, channel and category, all through its data layer. The team could finally see real performance of every product, in every store, against every week.
On top of that signal, Solya's intelligence layer built a recommended buy plan per category, supplier and month. It respected the new −12% budget, the supplier MOQs and the team's margin floor — and every line traced back to the data behind it.
How decisions get made
Each recommendation came with its reasoning attached: the sell-through curves, the store-level performance, the lookalike SKUs from prior seasons. The team didn't hand the buy to a model. They used it to challenge their own assumptions, line by line.
They committed to a hybrid plan — roughly 70% Solya recommendations and 30% buyer adjustments — with every decision and its rationale logged for the next review.
Where it lands
The committed plan flowed back through the orchestration layer into the merchandising system and the buyers' working view, three weeks ahead of the usual deadline. There were no meetings about which spreadsheet was right.
For the first season in three, the network director didn't ask the team to redo their numbers.
What changed
- −12% of open-to-buy absorbed without losing any bestseller volume
- Sell-through analysis refreshed in 3 hours instead of 2 days
- A 70/30 split of Solya recommendations to buyer adjustments, every line traceable to data
Related: see how network-aware allocation carries the same buy into each store, or how continuous replenishment keeps it on track through the season.
More use cases
Move stock before markdown is the only option left
A 9-store streetwear brand turned twice-a-season panic transfers into a calm weekly lever — moving stock six weeks before markdown was the only answer left.
Allocation that finally knows the network
A 14-store apparel network still split each season with a rule written when it had 8 stores. Solya re-allocated on what every store had actually become.
One feed for every alert that matters
An outdoor retailer's ops director triaged alerts across five channels. Solya gave her one prioritised feed — and 20 minutes back every Monday.
From the blog
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What does a retail merchandiser do? Role and skills
A retail merchandiser decides what a store sells, how much, and at what price. It's a decision job — and the decisions now outnumber the hours to make them.