Which product groups are selling and which are gathering dust?
№ 114 · Sell-through rate by SKU bucket
Definition
MetricSell-through rate
Unit% of units received sold within the measurement window
Bar chart of units sold divided by units stocked, per SKU performance tier. Below 60% suggests overstock risk. Build by tracking units sold vs units bought per SKU within a season window. Bottom-tier SKUs become markdown candidates. Example: Tier A 88%, Tier D 22% (markdown risk).
- SKU
- Stock keeping unit. One distinct sellable variant. Counted at the variant level, not the product level.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| 55% or below | 65% to 70% | 80% or better season-to-date |
Apparel and general merchandise specialty retail, units sold divided by units received, measured over a full 12 to 16 week season, 2025 to 2026 · The window is the whole argument. A 65% reading is excellent at week 6 and a failure at week 14, so any sell-through chart without weeks-on-hand on the x-axis is not interpretable. Sources also mix two different metrics under one name: total sell-through including clearance, which lands at 90 to 95% post-season, and full-price sell-through before the first markdown, which is the number that actually predicts margin and which Eightx reports has fallen from a 70 to 75% norm to roughly 50% at many fashion retailers. Treat the top30 figure above as full-price season-to-date. Higher is not always better at the extremes: luxury deliberately runs 50 to 65% to protect scarcity and price integrity, and a fast-fashion basic at 95% by week 8 means the buy was too shallow and demand was left unserved. Shopify labels its own weeks-on-hand figures illustrative, which is why confidence is medium rather than high.
| Category | Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fast fashion apparel | 60% | 75% | 85%+ |
| Mid-market apparel and basics | 55% | 67% | 75% |
| Footwear | 52% | 63% | 70% |
| Health and beauty | 72% | 82% | 90% |
| Consumer electronics | 58% | 66% | 75% |
| Home and furniture | 52% | 63% | 75% |
| Luxury and jewellery | 48% | 57% | 65% |
When it looks bad
The SKU buckets fan out instead of converging, with the top bucket already above 90% by mid-season while the bottom two sit under 40%, meaning the buy was concentrated in the wrong places and both ends are now losing money.
Week 9 of a 14 week season: top bucket 92% sell-through and out of stock in core sizes, bottom bucket 34% with 66% of units still on hand and no markdown triggered.
What to do about it
- Plot sell-through against weeks-on-hand, not against a flat target, and set a trigger line rather than a season-end target. A category tracking below 50% with a third of the season left is not going to recover on trend, and waiting until the season ends removes every option except deep clearance (NUL, Toolio).
- Split the chart into full-price sell-through and total sell-through as two separate series. Total lands at 90 to 95% post-clearance for almost everybody, which makes it useless as a diagnostic, while full-price is the series that moves gross margin and has slipped to roughly 50% at many fashion retailers (Eightx, NUL).
- Run the top bucket as a replenishment problem rather than a success. A bucket above 90% by mid-season with broken size curves is unserved demand, and the correct response is a chase order or a size-run rebalance, not a celebratory note in the trading meeting.
- Set category-specific trigger thresholds rather than one chain-wide number, since the healthy band runs from 50 to 65% in luxury to 75 to 90% in health and beauty. Trailing your own category baseline by 10 to 15 points for two consecutive periods is the practical investigation trigger (LooperBuy).
Sources
- Toolio Target ranges by vertical: apparel and fashion 65 to 85%, health and beauty 75 to 90%, sporting goods 70 to 85%, general retail 70 to 80%, consumer electronics 60 to 75%, home and furniture 55 to 75%, luxury and jewellery 50 to 65%. End-of-season below 60% triggers markdown escalation. toolio.com ↗
- Shopify Sell-through by weeks on hand: fragrance around 23% at 8 weeks rising to 63% at 52 weeks, cosmetics 25% then 48%, home improvement 55% then 90%. US retailers held about $810 billion in unsold product in July 2025. The publisher labels these benchmarks illustrative. shopify.com ↗
- StyleMatrix Fast fashion expects above 80%, mid-market apparel 65 to 75%, footwear 60 to 70% on size and fit complexity, premium apparel 50 to 65%. stylematrix.io ↗
- NUL Many retailers target around 70% full-price sell-through before the first markdown and 90 to 95% final sell-through after clearance, with below 50% before sale season treated as a warning requiring action. nul.global ↗
- Eightx Full-price sell-through has fallen from a 70 to 75% norm to roughly 50% at many fashion retailers, and markdowns now consume an estimated 20 to 50% of net sales. eightx.co ↗
- LooperBuy Fast fashion targets 60 to 80% within 4 to 6 weeks, contemporary and premium 50 to 70% within a 12 to 16 week season, luxury may accept 40 to 60% at full price, and trailing the category baseline by 10 to 15 points for two consecutive periods warrants investigation. looperbuy.com ↗
- FieldPie (citing Acctivate) A healthy retail sell-through rate typically falls between 80 and 85%, with anything below signalling a buying or timing misalignment rather than a slow sales week. fieldpie.com ↗
- Heuritech The fashion benchmark typically sits at 60 to 80%, with luxury brands often deliberately targeting around 50% given higher price points and limited production. heuritech.com ↗
- Wearview Apparel and fashion roughly 65 to 85%, health and beauty 75 to 90%, luxury and jewellery 50 to 65% where scarcity keeps it deliberately low, general retail 70 to 80%. wearview.co ↗
- Opensend A healthy monthly rate sits between 60 and 80%, top performers target 80% or higher, seasonal items target above 80% within their primary selling window, and rates persistently under 30% indicate inventory problems needing immediate attention. opensend.com ↗