Mid-Market Assortment Planning Practices
How mid-market brands structure assortment decisions by category, channel and season, and where spreadsheet-based assortment planning starts to break down.
Overview
Assortment planning — the process of determining which products to carry, in what depth, across which channels and time periods — is the core decision-making function of the merchandising team. It is also the area where mid-market apparel brands most frequently operate without structured process, relying instead on buyer intuition, historical precedent, and seasonal spreadsheets that are rebuilt from scratch each planning cycle.
This analysis examines assortment planning practices at mid-market apparel brands, with a focus on how assortment decisions are structured (or not), where the process breaks down as brands scale, and what the operational characteristics of high-performing assortment teams look like.
What Assortment Planning Actually Covers
The term "assortment planning" is used inconsistently in the industry. For the purposes of this analysis, assortment planning refers to the pre-season decisions that establish the structure and composition of the offering:
- Style count targets: How many styles per category, by season and channel?
- Category architecture: What is the balance across core, fashion, and carry-over? What share of OTB goes to each category?
- Depth decisions: How many units per style, and how does that vary by newness vs. carry-over vs. replenishment?
- Carry-over analysis: Which styles from the prior season warrant continued investment, at what revised depth?
- Channel allocation: For multi-channel brands, how is the assortment differentiated across DTC, wholesale, and owned retail?
What assortment planning does not include (for the purposes of this analysis): style-level design decisions (PLM territory), demand forecasting at the SKU level (forecasting tool territory), and purchase order execution (buying execution territory).
The assortment planning process sits between OTB (which establishes the financial envelope) and buying execution (which converts the assortment plan into committed purchase orders). It is the bridge between budget and buy.
Read the full assortment planning research.
How mid-market apparel brands structure assortment decisions — and where the process breaks down as brands scale.
- How to build assortment architecture before range review
- Carry-over management: the exit criteria that keep an assortment productive
- The multi-channel inflection point where spreadsheet planning consistently fails
- The process steps that keep an assortment plan consistent from architecture to range review
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