Footwear: Why Size Availability Decides Everything

A style can have stock and still miss the customer

Footwear turns one style into several separate service opportunities. A strong total can sit in the wrong sizes, while a customer requiring a particular fit cannot substitute another size safely or comfortably. Aggregate weeks of cover therefore need a size-level explanation before they guide the next refill.

Core Plus supports size curves, store quantities and replenishment context. This article goes beyond setting a curve: it examines the usable depth at the specific size and arrival window. A better curve for the next buy does not itself solve a current local size gap.

Read a small size run in pairs

The independent example has sizes six, seven, eight and nine holding twelve, two, three and thirteen pairs respectively, thirty in total. Assumed weekly demand is two, six, eight and two pairs, eighteen overall. The aggregate is roughly 1.7 weeks of stock.

Size six has six weeks of cover and size nine 6.5 weeks. Size seven has about 0.3 and size eight about 0.4. These are forward assumptions, not observed lost sales or a promise that every size sells at a constant rate. The network total does not describe a complete customer-facing size run.

Define what a useful receipt needs to do

For this comparison, the stock snapshot is taken at the start of the one-week selling window, and any proposed receipt must be usable at that same point. For a one-week target at the destination, size seven needs four additional pairs and size eight five. Together the proposed nine pairs bring those sizes to six and eight, matching their assumed weekly demand. Sizes six and nine do not need more for that specific target.

The store would then hold 39 pairs overall. That larger total is useful only because the added depth matches the constrained sizes. A generic nine-pair assorted pack could spend the same movement effort without creating the same local service opportunity. Keep the size list attached to the quantity.

A demand-weighted requirement check adds a second perspective. For the stated one-week targets, the current run can cover two, two, three and two pairs by size, nine of eighteen required pairs, or 50%. Extra sixes and nines do not fill the other size requirements. The matching proposal covers all eighteen of those assumed requirements; this is quantity coverage, not a measured probability of customer service or a sales conversion rate.

Check the source in the same sizes

Assume the distribution centre has ten usable pairs in size seven and twelve in size eight before the proposal. Moving four and five would retain six and seven respectively at that source. Its twenty-two pairs become thirteen; store thirty becomes 39; combined ownership remains 52.

Those retained quantities still need assessment against other stores and the next receipt. The illustration does not authorise taking stock already reserved elsewhere. Core Plus supports source, size and destination review; a calculated target is not permission to ignore the distribution centre’s reserve or another location’s accepted allocation.

Let lead time change the service question

The nine-pair proposal addresses one week of expected demand after a timely arrival. If the usable arrival moves beyond that window, its projected benefit cannot be credited to the earlier period. A transfer arriving too late might still be useful later, but it needs a later demand and stock basis.

For a separate two-week destination target with no intervening intake, size seven would need ten pairs and size eight thirteen. The stated source can supply ten in seven but only twelve in eight before reserves. The longer target is therefore not fully feasible from that source, even before competing commitments.

This makes the footwear decision more than a size-curve exercise. A one-week response is arithmetically feasible from the stated matching source before reserves; the two-week target is not. Keep that horizon boundary attached to any service claim. Filling every box on a size chart by counting assorted pairs would hide the unfilled size-eight requirement.

Use constrained selling carefully when revising the curve

Low sales from a nearly empty size can understate customer demand. Review comparable available periods and keep any estimated missed demand separate from till transactions. The article’s six and eight weekly demands are already planning assumptions, not values proved by the two and three pairs currently held.

Core Plus connects the current refill question to the size context. The next buying curve may need adjustment too, but that is a different decision with a different horizon. Avoid using a temporary transfer as evidence that the whole future size curve has been validated.

Review service where the customer meets the size

The useful follow-up is whether the matching pairs became usable in time and whether the retained source position remained adequate. Actual sales, availability and subsequent receipts can test the assumptions. A larger style total alone cannot establish that the footwear customer was better served.

Merchmix Core Plus supports the movement from a style-level warning to a size-specific proposal. Here the nine-pair response remains conditional on timing, reserves and approval. It does not claim nine recovered sales, and it does not move stock simply because the arithmetic balances.

Common questions