Which categories are over- or under-stocked?
№ 120 · Stock cover by category
Definition
MetricWeeks of stock cover by category
Unitweeks of forward cover at current unit sales rate
Bar chart of weeks of stock cover per category. Build from category inventory divided by category-specific run rate. Different categories need different cover (basics deeper, seasonal tighter). Example: Basics 14 weeks; Seasonal 6 weeks (correctly tight on seasonal).
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| 14+ weeks blended, or a spread above 6x between the longest and shortest category | 8 to 9 weeks blended, two or three categories outside band | every category inside its own band, spread across categories under 3x |
Multi-category physical retail, weeks of cover = inventory units divided by average weekly unit sales, derived from published turnover ratios at 52 weeks, 2024 to mid 2026 · Direction is shape because this card is about dispersion, not level. A blended cover figure is the least useful number in retail: it can look perfect while a fresh category is starving and a slow category is drowning, and the two errors cancel in the aggregate. Read the spread between the longest and shortest category first, then read each category against its own band. The weeks figures below are derived from annual turnover ratios by dividing 52 by turns, which assumes even sales through the year and therefore understates cover going into peak and overstates it coming out. Seasonal categories need a cover curve against a plan, not a flat band. Sources disagree on apparel by a wide margin, from 2 to 6 turns at DOSS to 6 to 12 at Onramp, largely because basics and seasonal capsules are being blended differently, so the apparel band below is deliberately wide.
| Category | Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh and perishable food | 3 weeks | 1.5 weeks | 0.8 weeks |
| Ambient grocery and convenience | 5 weeks | 3.5 weeks | 2.6 weeks |
| Apparel basics | 13 weeks | 9 weeks | 6.5 weeks |
| Seasonal and fashion apparel | 18 weeks | 12 weeks | 8 weeks |
| Consumer electronics | 10 weeks | 7 weeks | 5.2 weeks |
| Home and furniture | 20 weeks | 13 weeks | 8.7 weeks |
| Jewellery and accessories | 35 weeks | 22 weeks | 17 weeks |
When it looks bad
The category bars fan out into a long tail, with two or three categories sitting at three or four times the cover of the rest, while one or two sit below their floor and are quietly losing sales to breaks.
Blended cover 9 weeks looks on plan, but jewellery sits at 34 weeks, home at 19, and fresh at 0.5 weeks with weekly substitution incidents. The blend is healthy and no individual category is.
What to do about it
- Stop reporting blended cover and set a floor and a ceiling per category, since the healthy band spans roughly 1 week in fresh to 22 weeks in jewellery. A single chain target will always break one end of the assortment (Retalon, US Finance Calculators).
- Measure cover against forward demand rather than trailing sales for seasonal categories. Deriving weeks from annual turnover assumes even sales, which understates cover going into peak and overstates it coming out, and is the most common reason a seasonal category is corrected in the wrong direction.
- Track the spread between the longest and shortest category as its own line, because it moves before the blend does. A widening spread on a stable blend means the buy is drifting toward the slow end of the assortment while the fast end is being under-bought.
- Set the floor from lost sales rather than from carrying cost. Categories pushed below their floor break size and colour runs, and with roughly 8% of sought items typically missing from shelves the sales forgone usually exceed the working capital saved.
Sources
- Onramp Funds Fashion and apparel 6.0 to 12.0 turns (30 to 60 days), electronics 4.5 to 8.0 (45 to 80 days), home goods and furniture 2.5 to 5.0 (75 to 145 days), groceries 10 to 15. onrampfunds.com ↗
- Cleverence Directional day ranges: grocery and convenience 10 to 20 days, fast fashion and apparel 30 to 90 days depending on season, consumer electronics 30 to 70 days, industrial distribution and MRO 60 to 120 days. cleverence.com ↗
- Cleverence An apparel department with $4.2M COGS against $650k average inventory at cost turns 6.46x, equal to 57 days inventory outstanding. Apparel basics reach mid to high single digit turns while seasonal capsules often sit at low single digits. cleverence.com ↗
- US Finance Calculators Supermarkets 12 to 20x, general merchandise and discount 6 to 10x, clothing and apparel 4 to 8x, electronics 6 to 10x, furniture 3 to 6x, jewellery and luxury 1.5 to 3x. Nordstrom holds inventory an average of 70 days against $1.78B of tied-up capital. usfinancecalculators.com ↗
- DOSS Apparel and accessories 2 to 6x, general CPG 6 to 15x, distribution and wholesale 8 to 20x, with a turnover of 6 translating to roughly 61 days in inventory. doss.com ↗
- Retalon Average retail turnover sits around 9x. Baked goods 69.5x, fruit and vegetable markets 29.1x, convenience and gas 24 to 37x, grocery 15x, liquor 6.1x, supplements 4.9x, hobby and toy 3.5x, sporting goods 2.7x, accessories and jewellery 2 to 3x, musical instruments 2x. retalon.com ↗
- AisleStock Turnover ranges from roughly 1.3x in aftermarket auto parts to 20x in grocery and convenience. CSIMarket puts the whole US retail sector near 13x on a cost-of-sales basis for the twelve months to Q2 2026, but that aggregate is weighted toward grocery and discount. Lowe's anchors at 3.3x. aislestock.com ↗
- U.S. Census Bureau via FRED The seasonally adjusted retail inventories to sales ratio was 1.28 in December 2025, having sat between 1.28 and 1.29 across the preceding four months. fred.stlouisfed.org ↗
- U.S. Census Bureau The seasonally adjusted total business inventories to sales ratio at end of March 2026 was 1.32, against 1.38 in March 2025. census.gov ↗