Planning your first boutique order: size ratio, colour depth and how much to actually buy
A first wholesale order feels like a stock decision. It is really a research budget. You do not yet know which of your styles your customers will pick up, which colour they will reach for, or what sizes they actually are, and no amount of planning substitutes for finding out. The job of order one is to buy that answer as cheaply as possible, and to still have money left when the answer arrives.
Three decisions do all the work: how much, how wide, and how deep.
How much: split the budget before you shop
Decide this before you look at a single catalogue, because catalogues are designed to make you spend the whole number. A workable split for a new store:
| Slice | Share of budget | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| First buy | ~70% | The widest spread of styles and colours you can afford at minimum depth. |
| Restock reserve | 25–30% | Reordering the two or three styles that empty in the first six weeks. |
| Buffer | Whatever is left | Freight you underestimated, a defective lot, a wedding-season opportunity. |
The restock reserve is the part people cut, and it is the part that pays. A style that sells out and cannot be reordered has cost you every sale it would have made for the rest of the season, and taught your customers that your shop runs out.
How wide: buy styles, not stock
With a fixed budget you are trading style width against colour depth. On a first order the trade is not close.
| Same ₹45,000, two ways | What you get | What you know in six weeks |
|---|---|---|
| 3 styles, 5 colours each, deep | A confident-looking rack in three shapes | Whether those three shapes work. If one does not, a third of your money is stuck. |
| 9 styles, 2 colours each, minimum depth | A rack with range | Which of nine shapes your customers choose, and a reserve ready to go deep on the winners. |
Depth is a bet placed on information. Width is how you buy the information. Once you know the answer, the same rupees do far more work. On the mechanics of ordering minimum depth without annoying your supplier, see how minimums are counted in Indian wholesale.
How deep: the size curve
Most Indian wholesale is sold in sets, and a set is one piece of each size, which quietly hands you a flat 1:1:1:1:1 curve whether or not it matches your customers. That is a perfectly good starting point for a first order, precisely because it is unbiased. From order two onwards, tilt it.
| Size | Balanced start | Younger, urban customers | Where fuller sizing sells |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | 12% | 20% | 8% |
| M | 25% | 30% | 18% |
| L | 27% | 25% | 24% |
| XL | 22% | 15% | 26% |
| XXL | 14% | 10% | 24% |
To buy a tilted curve out of a set-based system, order sets for the base and add loose pieces on top in the sizes you want more of. Most suppliers will add pieces to an existing set order even when they will not break a set.
Do not drop the ends of the curve. Cutting S and XXL looks like efficiency and works like a slow leak: the customer who cannot find her size does not ask twice, she stops walking in. The ends are also the sizes competitors skip, which is exactly why people travel for them.
Colour: two rules
- Anchor first, statement second. Black, white, navy and the neutrals sell steadily and never date. Brights and prints sell faster when they work and stall completely when they do not. A first order that is all statement colour is a gamble; one that is all neutral has no reason for anyone to stop walking.
- Two colours per style, not five. Two is enough to see which direction your customers lean. The third to fifth colour of an untested style is the most common place a first budget disappears.
Track sell-through, not stock
You need exactly one number per style, and a notebook is enough to get it:
Sell-through = units sold ÷ units received × 100
Twelve pieces received, seven sold in four weeks, that is 58%. Not “we have five left”, but a percentage you can compare across styles that came in different quantities.
| Sell-through at 4 weeks | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Above 60% | A winner, and you are about to run out | Reorder now, deeper, in the colours and sizes that moved. |
| 30–60% | Healthy but not urgent | Hold. Reassess at eight weeks before committing reserve to it. |
| Below 30% | Not connecting with your customers | Move it to the front, try it on a mannequin for two weeks, then mark it down. |
Record the size and colour that sold, not just the count. “Sold 7 of 12” tells you to reorder. “Sold 7 of 12, all L and XL, six of them in the darker colour” tells you exactly what to reorder, and turns your second order into a far better one than your first.
A first-order checklist
- Set the budget, and ring-fence the 25–30% restock reserve before you shop.
- Pick width over depth: as many styles as the budget allows at minimum depth.
- Two colours a style: one anchor, one statement.
- Take the full size run, including the ends.
- Write down what arrived, by style, colour and size, on the day it arrives.
- Calculate sell-through at four weeks and again at eight.
- Spend the reserve on the winners, and clear anything under 30% before it goes out of season.
- Tell your supplier what sold. It is how the next order gets held for you.
One more thing worth getting right before you place the order: what the styles are made of. Fabric drives returns, complaints and repeat customers more than design does, and our retailer’s fabric guide covers what to expect from cotton, rayon, modal and linen, and what to tell a customer at the counter.
Frequently asked questions
How many pieces should I order per style?
On a style you have never sold, as few as the supplier will allow, usually one set per colour. Depth is a bet on a style you already know sells. Width across several styles is how you find out which ones those are. Once a style clears roughly 60% of what you received within four to six weeks, that is the one to go deep on.
How much stock does a new boutique need to open with?
There is no correct rupee figure, but there is a correct shape: spend about 70% of your opening budget on the first buy and hold 25 to 30% back for restocking whatever sells. New retailers routinely spend everything on day one, and then cannot reorder the two styles that emptied in three weeks. That is the single most expensive mistake in a first season.
Which sizes sell most in India?
M and L carry most of the volume in most womenswear stores, with XL close behind and growing. But the honest answer is that it depends on your locality, and you will know your own curve after one season. Start close to a balanced curve, record what sells rather than what you assumed, and tilt the next order towards your actual customers.
When should I reorder a style?
Check sell-through at four weeks and again at eight. Sell-through is simply units sold divided by units received. Above about 60% at four weeks, reorder immediately and go deeper on the colours that moved. Between 30 and 60%, hold and watch. Below 30% at eight weeks, stop waiting for it to turn and start clearing it.
What should I do with stock that will not sell?
Clear it while it is still current, not when it is out of season. A piece sold at cost releases cash into a style that is working; the same piece held for another three months is a loss plus the interest on the cash it is sitting on. Set the rule before you need it: anything below 30% sell-through at eight weeks gets marked down, and anything unsold at week twelve gets bundled or cleared.
Buying for your store this season?
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