Color Depth

Color depth in apparel planning refers to the number of units purchased in a specific colorway of a style. It is a distinct buy decision from style depth (total units across all colors) — determining not just how deeply to buy a style, but how to distribute that depth across the colors offered.

Color depth decisions are among the most consequential in apparel buy planning. The same total unit commitment distributed differently across colors produces very different sell-through outcomes. A style bought at 300 units total distributed across six colors at 50 units each will have different inventory economics than the same 300 units concentrated in three colors at 100 units each.

The color depth tradeoff

Spreading depth across many colors increases customer choice and reduces the risk that any single color is unavailable. But it also means each color may not have adequate depth to sell through at full price — especially if some colors perform significantly better than others.

Concentrating depth in fewer colors improves the odds that top-performing colors have sufficient inventory to sustain full-price sell-through. But it increases the risk of stockout on popular colors and residual inventory in under-performing colors if the color forecast was wrong.

The right balance depends on the brand's sell-through history by color, the style's role in the assortment, and the price point (where per-unit residual cost is higher).

Color depth and size curves

Color depth interacts with size curve decisions. For a style bought in three colors at 100 units each, the size curve must be applied separately to each color's 100 units — not to the 300-unit total. Colors with different expected customer demographics may warrant different size ratios.

Getting this wrong creates within-style inventory imbalances: one color with the wrong size distribution residualizes in sizes with lower demand while another color experiences stockouts in the same sizes.

Color depth in hindsight analysis

Prior-season color performance is the primary input for next season's color depth decisions. Color sell-through analysis should identify:

• →Which colors sold through fastest (may need deeper buy or more colors)
• →Which colors residualized (may need lower depth or removal)
• →Which colors were limited to specific channels or price tiers and performed differently across them