Seasonal Stock Planning for Garment Shops

A garment shop does not have one year. It has a run of seasons: summer lawn, Ramadan and Eid, Eid ul Adha, wedding wear, winter fabrics and shawls. Each one starts with buying before you know what will sell, and ends with whatever did not sell. The profit of the season is decided at both ends: how much you bought, and how quickly you cleared the rest.

This guide is about planning quantities and clearing leftovers. For setting up sizes and colours as variants, see managing stock by size and colour. For the Ramadan and Eid rush itself, including staff and cash, see Ramadan and Eid planning for retail.

The season cycle

Every season follows the same cycle, whether it is lawn or winter shawls. Write down your own dates for each step, so buying and clearing start on time instead of when someone remembers.

Start from last season’s sell-through

The most useful number for planning is sell-through: what share of what you bought was sold at full price.

Sell-through = pieces sold at full price ÷ pieces bought

For example, last summer you bought 400 lawn suits. You sold 300 at full price, 60 in the end-of-season sale, and 40 are still in the stockroom. Full-price sell-through was 300 ÷ 400 = 75%. Break this down further and the picture gets sharper: by price band, by supplier and by print. You may find that suits at 3,500 rupees to 4,500 rupees sold through at 85%, while suits above 6,000 rupees sold through at 50%. That is next season’s plan: more depth in the middle band, fewer pieces at the top.

Lawn is a lightweight, fine cotton cloth; Wikipedia notes that its popularity in the region comes from being breathable in warm climates. Demand rises and falls with the heat, so a cool spring or a long summer changes how long the season lasts. Your own weekly sales from past years are a better guide than any general rule.

Set a buying budget before you visit suppliers

Decide how much you will spend before the first supplier visit, not after. A simple way:

Buying budget = planned season sale at cost + stock you want left at the end − stock you already have

For example, you plan to sell 1,200,000 rupees of lawn this season at retail. At an average cost of 60% of the sale price, that is 720,000 rupees at cost. You want no more than 50,000 rupees at cost left at the end, and you already hold 90,000 rupees of usable stock from last year. Your budget is 720,000 rupees + 50,000 rupees − 90,000 rupees = 680,000 rupees. Hold back part of it, perhaps a fifth, for reorders of best sellers once the season shows what is working.

Depth versus breadth

Breadth is how many designs you carry; depth is how many pieces of each. Many shops buy too broad: forty designs, a few pieces each, and no stock left of the ones that sell. A better pattern:

• Proven lines: buy deep in designs, colours and price bands that sold through well last season.
• New designs: buy small test quantities, and reorder the ones that sell in the first weeks.
• Statement pieces: a few high-priced pieces bring customers in, but keep the quantities small.

Split by size and colour from real sales

For stitched and ready-to-wear stock, the size split matters as much as the total. Use last season’s sales by size, not an even split. For example, if your sales ran S 15%, M 35%, L 30%, XL 15% and XXL 5%, then an order of 200 kurtas becomes 30, 70, 60, 30 and 10, not 40 of each. Do the same for colours. Black and white often sell differently from seasonal colours, and your shop’s pattern is what counts. Unstitched suits avoid sizes, but print and colour still need the same care.

Eid moves every year

Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha follow the Islamic calendar, which has 354 or 355 days (Wikipedia). So each Eid falls about 10 to 11 days earlier in the Gregorian calendar than the year before. Over a few years, an Eid that once fell in the middle of summer moves into spring, and eventually into winter. That changes what customers buy for it: lawn and light fabrics for a summer Eid, heavier fabrics and shawls for a winter one. Check the expected Eid dates each year when you plan, and do not copy last year’s Eid order without asking whether the weather will be the same. Our post on festival season planning covers the other peaks in the year.

Wedding wear is a different kind of stock

Formal and bridal wear sells slowly, piece by piece, at high prices, and a single unsold outfit can cost as much as a dozen lawn suits. Plan it with less depth and more care: one or two pieces per design, the most common sizes only, and alterations or made-to-measure for the rest. Track how long each formal piece has been on the floor, and rotate slow pieces between display and storage so regular customers keep seeing something new.

The end-of-season sale

Leftover seasonal stock loses value quickly. Next year’s prints will be new, last year’s will look old, and the cash is tied up for twelve months. Clearing at a lower margin is usually better than carrying stock to next season.

Plan the sale in stages instead of one deep cut at the end: