FOR RETAIL TEAMS PLANNING IN SPREADSHEETS

Excel can hold the plan. It cannot run it.

Q: What is the difference between WSSI and MFP?

They describe the same discipline. WSSI , weekly sales stock and intake, is the UK and European term; MFP, merchandise financial planning, is the US one. Merchmix runs both as one live planning grid.

Your WSSI, OTB and weekly trade views live in Excel because nothing else kept up. Merchmix takes those same views and makes them live: sales, stock, intake and OTB update themselves, everyone works from one version of the truth, and a decision becomes a PO, an allocation or a markdown without leaving the system.

Book a Demo

Merchmix Merchandise Financial Planning interface showing weekly sales, forecast, last year comparisons, open-to-buy plan and committing adjustments

One

LIVE VERSION OF THE TRUTH

Zero

SUNDAY NIGHT EXPORTS

Monday

NUMBERS ALREADY FRESH AT TRADE

THE PROBLEM

The spreadsheet was never the problem. Everything around it was.

Somebody exports sales on Sunday night. Somebody else pastes intake into a different tab. By Monday's trade meeting there are four versions of the file, and the first twenty minutes go to arguing about whose numbers are right instead of what to do about them. The plan is careful, the formulas are clever, and none of it can touch the business. A spreadsheet cannot raise a PO, push an allocation or flag that a size curve broke while everyone was asleep.

Stale on arrival

Every view is an export, and every export is already out of date. You trade this week on last week's truth.

Four versions of final

Somewhere there is a file called FINAL_v7_ACTUAL. One file per person, one truth per file, and version control eats the meeting before decisions even start.

A plan that cannot act

The decision lives in a cell. Getting it into the business means retyping it into three other systems and hoping.

VS SPREADSHEETS

Everything the spreadsheet does, live. Everything it cannot, built in.

Spreadsheets earned their place. They are flexible, familiar, and every merchandiser on earth can build one. What they cannot do is stay live, agree with each other, or act on the business. Merchmix keeps the views your team already trusts, the WSSI, the OTB, the weekly trade grid, in the editable grid format they already work in, and connects them to real sales, stock and intake, with approvals, an audit trail and execution built in. And when you still want a file, it exports to Excel.

merchmix. Live ONE VERSION OF THE TRUTH Connected DECISION TO EXECUTION	Spreadsheets Flexible ANY MODEL YOU CAN BUILD Familiar ZERO LEARNING CURVE
✓ WSSI, OTB and range plans that update themselves	✓ Model anything instantly, no vendor required
✓ Sales, stock and intake refreshed live, no exports	✓ Everyone on the team already knows it
✓ One version of the truth for every team	✓ Already on every laptop in the business
✓ TY vs LY vs LY-1 comparison built in	✓ Ideal for one-off analysis and scratch work
✓ Approvals and a full audit trail on every change	✓ You own every formula end to end
✓ AI forecasting and merchandising recommendations
✓ A decision becomes a PO, an allocation or a markdown in the system
✓ Weekly trade review replaces the emailed recap deck
✓ Critical path timelines replace the spreadsheet project plan
✓ Import and export Excel and CSV whenever you want the file Book a Demo

THE CORE

From first signal to shop floor.

Core is the commercial engine of Merchmix: budgets, planning, range building and daily trade in one place, reading years of your sales history alongside live signals from every connected system. Every view below is one your team has tried to build in a workbook. Here they are live, connected, and writing back to your ERP, OMS or Shopify.

Direction

The season usually starts with last year's file, copied forward and adjusted by hand. Merchmix starts it by reading years of sales history alongside live market signals, showing where growth can come from and what is holding it back. You open the season pointed at opportunity, not at a template.

Budget

No more targets pasted into a tab and reconciled by email. Growth direction becomes commercial targets: sales, GP, stock investment and OTB, down to category level. One budget, one version, agreed once and carried through every stage that follows.

Control

This is the WSSI you already run, without the exports. The budget becomes a weekly sales, stock and intake plan that updates itself, continuity protects your never-out lines before gaps become lost sales, and every change stays connected to the numbers you signed off.

Range

Range boards replace the static deck, and cross costing replaces the margin tab. Option counts shape the assortment, and supplier, landed cost and margin are checked before you commit the buy, so nothing is bought that the plan cannot carry.

Moments

Trading moments and marketing spend are planned against the same numbers as the range, not in a separate calendar file. The calendar and the buy never disagree, and every promotion and drop lands against stock that is actually there.

Trade and review

The Monday meeting, without the version debate. Merchmix surfaces the ranked move, your team approves, one click executes it across your stack, and the Decision Log records every call. Product reviews feed what worked back into the next budget, and the cycle starts again.

WHAT MERCHMIX DOES

One platform. Built to grow with you.

Merchmix helps your team plan what to buy, put stock where demand is, and keep the shop floor selling. Every module stands alone: buy one, buy a few, or run the whole platform. Most retailers start with Core, because that is where it hurts.

ARRO

Move stock to live demand

Allocation and replenishment by SKU, store, channel and week, using live stock, rate of sale, cover, store grades and size curves.

Truly modular.

Start where the pressure is. Add modules as your team grows, with every workflow connected to the same sales, stock and planning truth.

Planogram

Make the shop floor match the plan

2D and 3D floor plans, VM guides, compliance and fixture-level ROI connected to range and stock performance.

Most start here

Core

Plan the season. Trade the day.

Budgets, MFP/WSSI, OTB, option planning, range planning, dashboards, reporting packs, product reviews and AI actions, all connected to daily retail decisions.

Connects to your stack

ERP, POS, ecommerce and supplier data, connected in one workflow.

ERP

Run retail operations

Products, inventory, purchasing, sales and finance workflows connected to planning and execution.

PLM

Develop product into the range

Specs, samples, suppliers and critical path linked directly to buying, planning and store execution.

WMS

Run the warehouse

Receiving, putaway, picking, packing, dispatch and warehouse KPIs tied to the same stock truth.

OMS

Take orders from anywhere

Routing, splits, backorders, dropship and fulfilment exceptions across every channel and location.

FROM VISIBILITY TO ACTION

Merchmix connected planning, execution, and performance workflow diagram

Built from 18+ years of retail experience.

Merchmix is shaped by retail operators, not outside observers. The founding team spent 18+ years inside retail brands running budgets, MFP/WSSI, OTB, range planning, allocation and daily trade, and for most of those years the tool was a spreadsheet. Merchmix is the system they wished the file could be.

INTEGRATION MODEL

Built to connect your stack.

Merchmix connects to the systems you already use, giving teams one live view of sales, stock, orders, suppliers and store performance. Nothing gets ripped out: your ERP, POS and ecommerce tools keep doing their jobs, and the exports your team used to run by hand become feeds that run themselves.

Bring your existing plans with you: upload your Excel and CSV files to get started, and export any view back out whenever you need a file.

Truly modular. Start with the workflow that hurts most, for most teams that is the WSSI, then add more as the business grows.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best alternative to Excel for retail planning?+

A retail operating system that keeps the same planning views live. Merchmix connects WSSI, OTB, range planning, allocation and weekly trade to real sales, stock and intake, so plans update themselves and decisions execute in the system instead of living in files.

Can I build a WSSI in Excel?+

Yes, and most merchandising teams have. The limits show up in trade: exports go stale, versions multiply, and the file cannot act on the business. Merchmix runs the same weekly sales, stock and intake structure as a live view with approvals and a full audit trail.

What is the difference between WSSI and MFP?+

They describe the same discipline. WSSI, weekly sales stock and intake, is the UK and European term; MFP, merchandise financial planning, is the US one. Merchmix runs both as one live planning grid.

Does Merchmix replace Excel?+

It replaces the jobs Excel was never built for: live planning, version control, approvals and execution. Any view still exports to Excel whenever your team wants a file for offline analysis.

How does data get in without manual exports?+

Through 300+ connectors across ERP, POS, ecommerce and supplier systems, sales, stock and intake feed in automatically. Your ERP stays the system of record, with approval-first write-back.

Do we lose the flexibility of spreadsheets?+

Spreadsheets stay ideal for one-off analysis and scratch work, and that is where they should stay. Merchmix takes over the repeatable operating views, the WSSI, the OTB, weekly trade, where flexibility without version control is exactly what breaks.

What does moving off spreadsheets involve?+

Less than replacing a system, because there is no system to replace. Merchmix connects to the stack you already run, your existing plans upload via Excel and CSV as the starting point, and teams typically start with the workflow that hurts most, then add modules as the business grows.

Why do retailers move off spreadsheets for merchandise planning?+

Version control, stale exports, error risk, and no route from decision to execution. The plan is usually good. The problem is that a file cannot see the business or act on it.

Is Merchmix hard to learn for a team that lives in Excel?+

No. The planning views are editable grids, week-by-week rows with TY vs LY vs LY-1 alongside, the same shape as the WSSI your team already runs. What changes is what sits behind the grid: live data, approvals and a route from every decision to execution.

Retire the file, keep the discipline.

See your own WSSI, OTB and weekly trade running live in Merchmix, connected to real sales, stock and intake, with a route from every decision to execution.