Retail Math: Understanding The Numbers That Drive Success

A Guide to Understanding Merchandising, Finance, Operations and Loss Prevention Metrics and Strategies

What you'll learn

Interpret margin & markup data and understand how to improve KPI's

Identify the components of a price

Markdown calculations, types, benefits and risks

Analyze the open-to-buy calculation

Understand inventory turns

Apply learnings to ask the right questions when presented with merchandising data

Shrink calculations and concepts

Break-even analysis

Introduction to the income statement

Comparative sales and SG&A expense ratios

Operations efficiency metrics

How to measure customer perception and behavior

Requirements

No retail experience or math expertise required, just bring a desire to learn

Description

Retail is an exciting, challenging, and fast-paced career choice.  Merchandising is the engine that drives the business.  The ability to understand merchandising & buying metrics is essential to success and those metrics are covered in great detail here.  This course goes a step further, taking a cross-functional view including store operations, finance, accounting, and loss prevention to explore strategic concepts and the big picture of how the metrics tell a story.  The instructor is known for using well-paced lectures and clear illustrations featuring examples and lessons learned over a decade in leadership roles.  The course is ideal for those who are new to retail or who are experienced but never received an in-depth explanation of the key metrics and strategic concepts.  Additionally this is great knowledge for any recruiter who needs to understand retail terminology in order to effectively interview candidates. The high level topics include:Merchandising formulas and conceptsPricing strategies explainedLoss prevention formulas and conceptsFinance & accounting retail relevant topicsStore operations key metricsCourse includes downloadable materials, such as visual illustrations of key concepts, a glossary and a 1-page formula cheat sheet.What you’ll learn:Interpreting margin & markup data and how to improve the related KPI'sIdentify the components of a priceMarkdown calculations, types, benefits and risksAnalyze the open to buy calculationUnderstand inventory turnsApply learnings to ask the right questions when presented with merchandising dataShrink calculations and conceptsBreak-even analysisIntroduction to an income statementComp sales & SG&A expense ratiosOperations efficiency metricsHow to measure customer perception & behavior

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 Learning Objectives

Section 2: Merchandising & Buying Math

Lecture 3 Components of a Price

Lecture 4 All About Markups

Lecture 5 The Art & Science of Markdowns

Lecture 6 Pricing Strategies

Lecture 7 Open to Buy

Lecture 8 As the Inventory Turns

Section 3: Finance & Accounting Math

Lecture 9 Some Definitions and an Income Statement

Lecture 10 Break-even Analysis

Lecture 11 Comp Sales

Lecture 12 Measuring SG&A Expense

Section 4: Loss Prevention Math

Lecture 13 You Can Count on Shrink

Section 5: Store Operations Math

Lecture 14 Retailer Performance

Lecture 15 Shopper Behavior Metrics

Section 6: Conclusion

Lecture 16 Closing Thoughts

Buyers, assistant buyers, planning & allocations analysts,Store operations, loss prevention, retail finance & accounting, inventory control professionals,HR recruiters who want to learn frequently used acronyms and terminology,Students who are interested in a retail career but want to know more about the inner workings,IT technologists who are responsible for designing and maintaining retail software such as POS, merchandising and pricing systems,Project managers who are inexperienced in retail concepts,Internal and external auditors who want to understand the metrics of retail,Any retail professional who wants a broader understanding of KPI's from a cross-functional perspective