Monday 14 April 2014


A while ago, I attended a range review. I helped a little with the preparation: pulling together sales by product last year, both in total and by channel; and then ranking the products, again both by channel and overall. We also produced spreadsheets grouping products by line and category, showing the different categories each family comes in, and calculating top-line growth by category.

The discussion at the range review meeting was fascinating. In many instances, the managers weren’t really wanting to extend or reduce the range; their aim was to replace a slow-seller with a best-seller.  The replacement should therefore please both new customers and stalwarts of the old product – a hard bill to fit!

The categories to which they were wanting to add references were the those showing the highest growth, yes – but also categories comprising disproportionately few SKUS, compared to competitors, and categories where sales were strong and steady (to prevent this sort of category becoming stale, they wanted newness – exciting launches and for the products that are not pulling their weight to be discontinued).

It was really fascinating!

When I looked out of the window this morning, the cherry outside had blossomed dawn-pink. And this was set against the sunset-orange flowers of the shrub beneath. It was so striking I had to take the picture above. And in many ways, the prints in store at the moment reflect these clashing florals. I think the below are particularly beautiful:


Floral Patchwork Print Dress Markus Lupfer £315, Botanical Print Dress Warehouse £65, Shard Rose Print Dress Paul Smith £320, Wisteria & Violet Cologne Alex Monroe £82, Hand Decorated Easter Eggs Fortnum & Mason from £39.95 each

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