Intensify Assortment

With few exceptions, every SKU in the range should earn its right to be there. If it isn't delivering cash margin, contributing to the bottom line, then it is adding unnecessary management overhead and stock holding costs.

The Retail Acumen approach to range rationalisation starts with the numbers. Our systems and processes enable us to analyse relative performance of each SKU in the business. Taking your sales data (£ and units) and margin data (£) achieved over an agreed time period we can identify the pattern by which SKUs contribute to margin. Usually it is a very steep pareto, often with less than 10% of SKUs delivering 80% of cash margin! Clearly there is a great opportunity to intensify the assortment... but not something that any sensible retailer would rush into.

Range Architecture and SKU Count

Retail Acumen model the impact that culling the under performing SKUs would have on range / price architecture and margin / sales, proving the benefit of delivering a range rationalisation exercise.

We create a proposal for a reduced range size based on the most highly performing SKUs whilst retaining those necessary to complete the range architecture or price ladder. The final outcome is a sensible decision about which SKUs to discontinue, not only based on the numbers, but based on the role each SKU fulfils.