Broken size runs and dead stock: how to spot and clear them

What a broken size run is

A size run is the full range of sizes of one article in one colour. The run is broken when the sizes most customers ask for are sold out while the end sizes remain. The article still shows stock in your books, but most customers who like it walk out without it.

Both rows hold stock. Only the first one can serve the customer who walks in.

What dead stock is

Dead stock is a pair that has not sold for a long time. Shops usually look at it in age buckets — unsold for 60, 90 and 180 days. The older the bucket, the less likely the pair is to sell at full price: the season has passed, the box has faded, and newer designs sit beside it.

How to spot them

• Look at stock as a grid, colour × size, not as one quantity per article. “14 pairs in stock” hides that none of them is an 8.
• Mark your core sizes for each category. A run is broken when a core size is at zero.
• Date every purchase. Stock age is counted from when the pair came in.
• Record lost sales. Each time a size is asked for and missing, note it. A list of missed sizes is the best reorder list you will get.
• Count by rack. A regular audit finds single shoes, mismatched pairs and damaged boxes that the books still count as sellable.

How to clear a broken run

1. Top up the missing sizes if the article is still selling and the supplier has it. This is the cheapest fix.
2. Move pairs between branches. The size that is stuck in one shop may be short in another.
3. If it cannot be topped up, clear the rest. Mark the article as clearance and price the remaining sizes to go, before they become dead stock.
4. Sell odd sizes as a lot. Wholesalers clear pairs left after breaking sets — cut sizes — as an odd-size lot at a clearance rate.

How to clear dead stock

• Mark down by age. A small discount at 60 days, more at 90, more again at 180 — a ladder, decided in advance, so that it does not depend on mood.
• Check the GST effect. A discount can move a pair from 18% into 5%, which leaves you more than you expect. Work it out with the markdown and profit calculator.
• Know your floor. Compare the sale price with landing cost before you agree to it.
• Give the salesman a reason. An extra incentive on aged stock and odd sizes moves pairs that nobody offers otherwise.
• Return what you can. Stock taken on sale-or-return goes back to the supplier instead of onto the clearance rack.
• Separate seconds. Faded, shop-soiled and display pairs sell at a seconds price; do not let them sit among fresh stock.

How to have less of it next season

Buy by what sold, size by size. If sizes 8 and 9 sell most in men's formal, the next order should be heavier there and lighter at the ends. A minimum and maximum for each size — a model stock — turns that into an order you can send to the supplier.

In Padam

The size-run view colours every cell: in stock, low, sold out. Padam raises a broken-run alert, lists stock unsold for 60 / 90 / 180 days with “move to clearance”, suggests a markdown by age and broken-run status, records lost sales in one tap, and suggests transfers between branches. The size-wise sell-through report is your buying guide.