Autumn Range Planning: How to Use Sales Data to Decide What Stays

Every time a new season rolls around, the same conversation happens in stores everywhere: what should we keep, what goes, and what new product should make its big debut? Too often, that conversation gets settled by gut feeling, or simply "we've always done it this way." You’re probably thinking, there’s gotta be a better way of doing this. And if your till has been logging every order all year, then you actually already have all the answers. The question is knowing where to look and what to do from there. 

Planning a great autumn range takes more than sprinkling some golden leaves on everything and hoping for the best. Ready to actually get this right? Let us show you.

It takes more than just gut feeling

You might be inclined to just plonk your bestsellers or products with the best markup on the shelves as usual, but doing so overlooks vast amounts of data you could use to your advantage. Otherwise, you might be keeping a product around that's quietly costing you more than it's earning. So, why not double-check the numbers to make sure you’re on track to maximum success? 

This process is called stock engineering, and it's as serious as it sounds. In fact, a Cornell University study found that restaurants applying disciplined menu engineering saw an average 10% increase in profitability, without adding a single new dish or seating a single extra table. Studies by the American Marketing Association reflect almost identical results in the retail sector. Looking at your sales data and trimming underperformers creates space for you to bring in new, seasonal winners. All you need to do is take a good look at your sales data.

Instead of asking "Do we like this product?" you ask two more useful questions: how often is it actually selling, and how much is it actually making you? Fortunately, there’s a system that can help answer this question for you. 

The two categories that matter when planning your range

It all comes down to two categories, and these are the things that matter most. Every product in your range can be judged against two things:

• Popularity: How often it sells relative to everything else on the shelves.

• Profitability: What markup do you get on each sale, and how much are you making overall?

Using these two categories, every dish on your menu falls into one of four rough camps:

• Popular and profitable: These are your stars. These are the products to keep front and centre on the autumn menu, and the ones worth building your range around.

• Popular but low-margin: These products are pulling people in, but not making you much once costs are factored in. Worth a closer look at pricing, and whether customers are buying other products alongside them, before you decide whether to keep, adjust, or retire them altogether.

• Profitable but rarely ordered: These are hidden gems that might just need better placement, a new description, or a mention from staff to get noticed.

• Neither popular nor profitable: The ones you can usually cut without anyone noticing, freeing up shelf space for something that'll actually earn it.

Cost prices feed into that profitability number, and popularity isn't fixed either; a small tweak to placement or description can shift it. Everything matters when you're planning your inventory, and for best results, every single factor is worth considering, especially if you've got limited capacity. Sometimes you'll have to be ruthless, cutting a product you personally love because the numbers just don't back it up, but you know how it goes: the numbers don't lie.

What to actually pull from your reports before you plan

Before you sit down to redesign your autumn range, some reports are worth pulling from your POS system. With this information to hand, you’ll be better equipped to make a smart business decision for your store. Here’s what you’ll need to look at:

• Sales by item, over the last three to six months: What's actually selling, and how does that compare to a year ago, if you have last autumn's data to check against?

• Sales by time of day or day of week: A product that flops on Fridays but sells on Saturday might just need repositioning rather than cutting entirely.

• Profit margin per sale: If your system tracks costs against sales, this is where a "popular" product can quietly turn out to be barely breaking even.

• Wastage reports: An item that frequently spoils not only isn't selling, but will have much lower margins overall.

• Customer or location-based reports: If you operate more than one site, a product that's thriving at one location might be dead weight at another, and a single autumn range might not fit every site equally well.

Most modern POS systems, including Epos Now, generate these as standard reports rather than something you need a separate tool to calculate: sales, inventory, and profit-and-loss reports are all available directly from the back office, filterable by item, location, staff member, or time period.

Turning data into menu items

So you've got the numbers in front of you, so what next? It's tempting to jump straight to designing exciting new seasonal specials, but here's what we recommend: start with what to cut, not just what to add. Trimming underperforming products frees up shelf space and inventory budget. If you're not sure about a product, consider whether you can reposition it first: a genuinely bad sales figure might just mean it's badly placed or badly priced, so try moving it, repricing it, or pairing it with a seasonal twist in a bundle you can promote before you retire it for good.

When it comes to new additions, check the previous year's data for anything similar before committing to it. When pricing, think in terms of margin rather than just what feels fair: a popular product with thin margins might need a small price adjustment rather than being pulled altogether.

Once the new setup is live, don't treat the decision as final; feel free to revisit it in a few weeks. The real test of any change is what the data shows once it's actually out there, and there's no shame in chopping and changing throughout the season if that's what the numbers tell you to do.

Your till already has the answer

The good news is that all of this information can be made available to you with ease. This probably sounds like a tricky thing to figure out by hand, checking receipts, cross-referencing spreadsheets, guessing at margins, trying to remember what sold well last spring. Fortunately, it is exactly the kind of manual work a POS system is meant to replace.

Epos Now's reporting tools give you sales, inventory, and profit-and-loss reports directly from the back office, filterable by item, location, staff member, or time period, so you can see how every single product and range is actually performing without having to build the analysis yourself. Plus, if you're managing more than one site, location-based reporting shows you whether a product is working everywhere or only really earning its place at one venue.

These systems exist to make your life easier without requiring separate tools or added costs bolted onto your till. It's the same system already ringing up every order, just put to work answering the question you're asking each time a new season comes around: what's actually worth keeping on the menu. This autumn, you’ll be able to answer this question confidently, without the guesswork, second-guessing, or memory games of seasons past.