This is probably old news to many, but after doing this for too many years a light bulb went off.

We should have an annual inventory plan formulated at the beginning of the year, which can take into effect the previous year's results/data. That means something like a "plan-o-gram" where the number of lines, which lines, which lines to sell off, which frames to mark down, which lines need to be brought in/expanded, etc.

This assumes that I see a frame rep only twice per year.

The first visits (which is going to be spread out over the first two quarters) will be to implement the plan.

Then, since we want to give our annual inventory plan a whole year to be tested (and despite tempting fall releases) the second visit of the year will just be maintenance (returning disco, filling in empty slots).


What do you think of this system?