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Hey Sellers!
Your inventory is the heart of your business, and so it is crucial to understand each of your items' performance over time. Introducing your Inventory Sell-through, a new report within your Square for Retail Dashboard that provides you with an organized daily snapshot of the information you need to effectively manage your inventory. Look at sell-through rate, units sold vs units on-hand, sales velocity, and more — it’s easier than ever to see key insights and take actions to better your business.
Note: This feature is only available on Retail Plus
Why does sell-through matter?
What is a sell-through rate?
“Sell-through” is a percentage that compares the amount of inventory a seller receives from a vendor against what’s actually sold over a given period of time. Although sell-through rates vary by industry and item type, a general rule of thumb is that anything at or above 80% is excellent and below 40% is concerning. A sell-through rate over 100% indicates an item is out of stock.
Formula
Sell Through = # items sold / [qty at start of period + quantity received or adjusted during period] x 100
Example:
Start with 100 books at the beginning of the month,
realize there are only 98 after recounting,
receive an additional 8,
and sell 60 after 30 days
60/(100-2+8)*100 = 56% sell-through rate
Why is a sell-through rate important?
Sell-through is a powerful tool that helps Sellers understand what items are most popular and require restocking, what items are less popular and likely can be discounted or discontinued, and how inventory, in general, is flowing. By focusing on the top-performing items and cutting the least performing, Sellers can cut costs and growth margins and optimize inventory operations.
How is Sell-through calculated?
Sell-through is calculated by dividing the number of items sold in the selected time period by the quantity of items on hand at the start of the period + the quantity received or adjusted during the period and multiplying by 100.
What can you do with sell-through reporting?
- Restock items with a high sell-through rate
- A high sell-through rate is a good indication of popular items that sell well and may be understocked. Monitor Quantity on Hand, Sales Velocity, and Out of Stock to determine when you should be restocking
- Promote and discount overstocked items
- A low sell-through rate can indicate an item is overstocked or not selling well. You may want to promote this item, move it around in-store, or offer a discount to reduce your supply and raise your sell-through rate.
- Discontinue items with a low sell-through rate
- Items that constantly have a low sell-through rate may be items you want to consider discontinuing or replacing.
- View Sold vs On-Hand inventory
- In addition to sell-through rates, your new report gives you visibility into # of items on-hand vs sold so you can easily identify where you are high and low on stock.
- Identify Sales Velocity by item
- Sales Velocity gives you insight into the speed at which your items are being sold over a period of time. This can help you identify the popularity of items.
- Understand Out of Stock Predictions
- With sell-through rate and sales velocity, you can make informed decisions on when items will be out of stock and when to restock to ensure you don’t run out.
Where can you view the report?
You can view the Sell-through report via your Square Dashboard. Navigate to Reports > Inventory Reports > Inventory Sell-through.
In this report, you can search by name, SKU, or GTIN and filter by location, category, and timeframe. To expand or collapse variations, click the blue arrow on the left of the Item column header. To change how the table is sorted, click on the column headers that have up or down arrows next to them. To change which columns are visible in the table, click on the plus sign on the upper righthand corner of the table.
Note: Inventory tracking must be turned on under Items > Settings > Inventory in order for a Sell-through report to be generated for an item or its variations. |
For more details on the Sell-through Report, including FAQ’s and how to to use it to make informed decisions, read our article: Sell-through Report with Square for Retail
For more information on inventory management, check out these resources:
- Basic Inventory Management
- Manage Inventory with the Retail POS App
- Manage Purchase Orders With Square for Retail
- Square for Retail: Inventory Plus
JANUARY 2023 UPDATE
[Improvement] Retail: Additional Features for the Sell-Through Report
- Labels:
-
Reporting
-
Square Retail POS
This is a decent start on this kind of report. I've long wished you'd sync up sales data with the inventory data on when items were added -- but what I really want to compare is how long it takes to turn items. So, if an item comes in Jan. 1 and sells March 5 that item might be less valuable than an item that comes in Jan. 1 and sells Jan. 15. Both appear in your report as 100% sell-through, but obviously that's not as helpful as comparing dates stocked vs. date sold.
SO, please, please, please add an export option. Then we can do the analysis that's lacking in this report.
It also would be helpful to show price at which at item sold or at least an indicator of sale at reduced price. It's helpful to analyze what sold at full price and what was sold at a discount late in a season.
YESSSSSS!! I’ve been waiting for this for 3 years! You just made me day. Yay!!
Chief "Do Good, Feel Good" Officer
In store: 1528 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz, CA
Online: www.ShopFybr.com
excellent report... this is definitely something we've been needing; Bravo!!
Co-Owner Amityville Apothecary
www.shopamityvilleapothecary.com
Instagram | TikTok @AmityvilleApothecary
Podcast: Apothecary After Dark (YouTube & Spotify)
Hi @purplebutterfly ! Thanks for your constructive comment. I've sent your thoughts to the product team responsible for this launch and most of your requests seem to have been scoped and are coming soon.
Good report. Just what I was looking for. Was looking for a 6 month report. But 90 Days will work for a start. Absolutely need the Export option in order to customize the results better.
Tried the report for the first time and no matter which category I selected in the drop down the screen went from all products to zero showing. I had to key word search indivudual prodicts. The premise of the report is great but it needs to work
PLease also allow each numeric column to be sorted in ascending or descending order
thanks
Hi @PcklBrl ! Thanks for giving your feedback. The product team is aware that this is impacting sellers and they are working on fixes and improvements that they plan to launch soon.
This is what us sellers need to see, how many of which items are our better sellers and which ones we might be able to discontinue.
Owner
Pocono Candle
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great report -- thanks for the addition. I see that export has already been requested - but how can I just print it out for now? (I want to share the information with my sales team)
Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to work. I checked my ITEMS->SETTNGS->INVENTORY, and all I see are ON/OFF switches for showing catalog, sales, and inventory insights, which are all on. But I don't see a menu option for Inventory Sell-through in my Reports section.
Has this feature rolled out to all customers? If so, does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong?
BTW, I think this is a GREAT feature.
Oooo thanks for the update! This is cool! I’ll hav ego definitely check this out on my office day!
This is a great start! I have needed this type of report, and it's just in time for summer markets. Thanks!
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Hi @SweetShackCandy ! This feature is only available for Retail Plus subscribers. I have made some changes to the post to make that more clear to everyone. Second, just to make sure you're looking in the correct section, the "Reports" section is a different menu from "Inventory Reports." Are you able to access the Sell-Through Report through this Dashboard link? https://squareup.com/dashboard/sales/inventory-reports/sell-through
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Great start!!! The last date received and last date sold helps a lot!!! I had some issues when I tried to sort the report by category, it doesn't seem to show all items in the category. Any insight?
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Hi @GoodEarthFoods, happy to hear the received and sold data is helpful! Regarding category filtering, our product team is aware of a small bug and actively working on resolving it — this will be mended very soon.
Again, this is a great start. I would like to request the ability to sort by vendor, not just by category. I place orders by vendor, and need to see what's selling for each vendor. That's the one thing I miss from the previous stock forecast report. I also second having a longer look-back. 90 days is good, YTD and Last Year are better since many items are seasonal in nature.
This is an amazing feature that saves me hours every week, as I was doing this manually until now. Two additions that would make it exponentially even more helpful: the ability to export, and the ability to sort by vendor. Sell-through and velocity are great indicators, and being able to link that information to a product and vendor all in one place would be amazing. The ability to export will allow us to do this manually. Thanks!
Great report but without the ability to export or even print, it's useless. Unless you have a wide monitor you can see more than 2/3 columns at a time.