In-season planning: re-buys, markdowns and the mid-season correction
How to trade the plan as sales land: re-forecasting, re-buys inside open-to-buy, markdown timing and assortment moves, all inside your guardrails.
The plan you set before the season is a starting position, not the season. What matters is how you trade it once real sales start coming in. Most of the margin is won or lost in season, in the weeks between the first sell-through signal and the point where it is too late to act.
Re-forecast on the signal
Rerun the forecast on the latest sales, on whatever cadence fits your business. The point is not to chase noise week to week, it is to catch the styles that are clearly running ahead of or behind plan while there is still time to do something about them.
Re-buy into what works
When a style is selling through faster than planned and lead times allow, re-buy inside your open-to-buy. When it is not, hold the budget back. In-season buying is where a live OTB earns its keep, because you are committing cash against fresh demand, not a pre-season guess.
Time markdowns to clear on plan
A markdown is a tool for clearing stock by a date at the best margin you can. Timed early and shallow, it clears cleanly. Left late, it turns into a deep cut that gives away margin you did not need to. Plan the markdown against the cover, not the calendar.
Move the assortment
In season is also when you rebalance: shift stock to the doors and channels where demand actually is, exit the styles that are not working, and double down on the ones that are. The assortment you launched is rarely the one you should be trading by week six.
This guide covers the weekly loop and the guardrails that keep in-season moves inside the limits you set.