Retail Math: Understanding the Numbers that Drive Success

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

Created by: Rich Veltri
Expert in retail systems, project management and accounting

What Will I 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
• Sales per square foot and sales per employee
• How to measure customer perception and behavior

Requirements

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

Target audience

• 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