Build an open-to-buy plan for next season
A month-by-month open-to-buy plan at retail and cost that shows how much I can still buy and where I'm overbought.
The prompt
Help me build an open-to-buy (OTB) plan for my next season.
Category or department: [NAME]
Planning period: [e.g. "Feb-Jul, by month"]
Planned sales by month: [AT RETAIL - or last year's actuals plus my growth assumption]
Planned markdowns and promotions by month: [$ OR % OF SALES]
Beginning-of-month inventory now: [AT RETAIL]
Target inventory levels: [e.g. "BOM stock-to-sales ratio of 3.0" or planned EOM inventory by month]
Inventory already on order: [BY DELIVERY MONTH, AT RETAIL]
Initial markup %: [to convert retail to cost]
Use the retail method: planned purchases = planned sales + planned markdowns + planned end-of-month inventory - beginning-of-month inventory. OTB = planned purchases - on order.
Return:
1. A month-by-month table: BOM inventory, sales, markdowns, EOM inventory, planned purchases, on order, OTB at retail, OTB at cost.
2. Months where OTB is negative (overbought), with options: cancel, push delivery, shift to another month, or plan a promotion.
3. How much OTB to hold back for in-season reorders and opportunistic buys, with reasoning.
4. Sensitivity: OTB if sales come in 10% below and 10% above plan.
5. Assumptions I should confirm with finance.
Show the formulas so I can rebuild this in a spreadsheet. Do not fill gaps with made-up figures; mark them [ADD].
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Finance & Accounting prompts
What to fill in
- NAME
- e.g. "Feb-Jul, by month"
- AT RETAIL - or last year's actuals plus my growth assumption
- AT RETAIL
- BY DELIVERY MONTH, AT RETAIL
- to convert retail to cost
- ADD
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Few-Shot structure (Few-shot prompting). A few-shot prompt includes one or more worked examples of the input and the output you want, so the model can copy the pattern instead of guessing it.
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