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Buy Smart, Sell Well: The Independent Retailer's Guide to Buying Stock, Planning Inventory and Selling for Profit
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Mar 26 2026
Pages: 94
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.19 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Most people who open an independent shop know their product and their customer. What they often don't know is how much stock to buy, what to pay for it, when to mark it down - and how to tell whether a season is going well before it's too late to do anything about it.
That gap between great taste and sound retail fundamentals is where businesses get into trouble.
Buy Smart, Sell Well is the practical guide that closes it.
Written by a Planning and Merchandising Director with over 20 years of experience across global brands, it translates the knowledge that professional buyers and merchandisers spend years learning into plain, practical language for the independent retailer.
What's inside:
- How to calculate your Open to Buy - the most important number in retail
- How to build a sales plan and work out your break-even point from scratch
- How to plan a balanced assortment that covers your customer properly
- How to price for profit and build markdown room in from the start
- How to read your trading numbers week by week and act early on slow sellers
- When to mark down, how deep to go, and why acting early costs you less
- How the buying calendar works and what to ask suppliers before you commit
- How to manage inventory so you're never short on bestsellers or buried in slow stock
- UK markdown regulations and EU Omnibus Directive reference - what the law requires
- How to use AI tools to save time on the tasks you find hardest
Every chapter uses real retail maths with worked examples. No fluff. By the end you'll have a clear, repeatable system for buying, planning and trading your stock - season after season.
Also includes: full glossary, formula cheat sheet, and retail calendar reference.
Who this is for: Anyone opening an independent retail shop, or retailers in their first few years who want to get properly structured. No prior knowledge of retail planning needed - everything is explained from scratch.
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