Fehlentscheidungen bei Sortiments- und Kundenallokation in der Futures-Planung

Definition

In futures seasons, certain styles, colourways and sizes are constrained by factory MOQs and capacity. Wholesalers must decide how much of each constrained SKU to offer to different Australian retailers before having full visibility of actual store-level potential. Without integrated analytics that combine past sell-out data, door performance and margin profiles, many wholesalers default to manual pro-rata splits or politically-driven allocations. This causes two forms of financial loss: (1) high-performing doors receive insufficient inventory of winning styles, leading to lost wholesale revenue and potential competitor substitution; (2) weaker doors receive excess inventory that they cannot sell through, forcing the wholesaler into end-of-season rebates, returns or off-price clearance. In a portfolio where 20% of SKUs drive 60–70% of gross profit (a typical pattern in fashion and footwear), misallocating even 10% of those key SKUs can easily erode 1–3% of total gross profit, equivalent to AUD 100k–300k per year for a medium-sized Australian wholesaler.

Why This Matters

The Pitch: Australian footwear wholesalers 🇦🇺 routinely misallocate 5–15% of scarce styles in pre-season, which can shift hundreds of thousands of AUD in gross profit each year. Decision-support tools that optimise account-level allocations based on historic sell-out and margin can reduce these losses.

Affected Stakeholders

Sales Director, Key Account Manager, Merchandise Planner, Category Manager, GM/Managing Director

Related Business Risks