Sell-Through Rate: Formula, Benchmarks, and When to Reorder

The short answer

Sell-through rate is the share of units a retailer received that sold in a defined period—(units sold ÷ units received) × 100. Pair it with weeks of supply and lead time: when remaining cover is about as long as your ship time, propose a right-sized reorder. Ask each buyer their target.

Selling wholesale to independent stores? Set up your brand on Ordrly. Core is $0/month.

What sell-through rate measures

Sell-through answers a different question than sell-in. Sell-in is what left your warehouse. Sell-through is what left the shelf. A big opening PO that sits in the back room looks like success on your books and a problem on the buyer's.

For wholesale brands, the number shows whether a door is earning its space—and whether the next conversation should be a reorder, merchandising help, or a smaller buy next season.

This guide is the formula, published category ranges, weeks of supply, and the reorder math. If you still need the practical how-to for getting units-sold from independents without EDI 852, use our companion post on sell-through data from retailers.

The sell-through rate formula

The wholesale version most buyers quote is:

Sell-through rate = (units sold ÷ units received) × 100

Say you ship 120 units of a trail sock to an outdoor shop at the start of spring. Eight weeks later, 90 have sold. Sell-through = (90 ÷ 120) × 100 = 75%. Thirty units remain on hand.

Three details change how you read that percentage:

• Period matters. Grocery buyers may look weekly; apparel and gift buyers often look across a season. Always state the window. WholesalePilot notes the period is set by the buyer—ask which one they use.

• Received, not ordered. Short ships and late deliveries shrink the denominator. Measure against what landed, not what was on the PO.

• It is not inventory turnover. Turnover is usually an annualized money ratio (cost of goods sold ÷ average inventory). Sell-through is a percentage of a specific shipment sold in a specific window. Buyers use both; meetings usually quote sell-through.

Full-price vs total sell-through

RetailNorthstar's apparel guidance stresses a useful split: track full-price sell-through separately from total sell-through. A style at 75% total sell-through with only 40% at full price is markdown-driven clearance, not a chase candidate. Before you push a reorder, ask whether the units sold at regular price or only after a cut.

What counts as a good sell-through rate

There is no single universal target. Shopify's retailer-side guide cites a common benchmark around 80%, with healthy in-period assortments often landing in a roughly 70–80% band depending on category and life cycle. Your own history and the buyer's open-to-buy rules beat any blog average.

For wholesale categories, RepSpark publishes the following planning ranges (use them as starting points, not Ordrly "facts"):

Rates in the warning zone usually mean assortment misfit, an opening buy that was too large for that door's velocity, or missing retail support (placement, staff education, a simple shelf talker). They do not automatically mean "make more product."

The clearest target is the one the buyer already uses. Ask: "What sell-through do you need in the first eight weeks to reorder?" Most independents will tell you.

Turn sell-through into weeks of supply

The percentage alone can mislead. A 70% sell-through with almost nothing left and a four-week lead time is an emergency. A 30% sell-through with ten weeks of cover is often "wait." Instilus frames the useful conversion this way:

1. Weekly rate ≈ (units sold ÷ days in period) × 7

2. Weeks of supply (cover) = units remaining ÷ weekly rate

Say the outdoor shop sold 90 of 120 trail socks in 56 days. Weekly rate ≈ (90 ÷ 56) × 7 ≈ 11.3 units/week. Remaining = 30. Weeks of supply ≈ 30 ÷ 11.3 ≈ 2.7 weeks.

If your pick-and-ship lead time to that account is three weeks, cover is already shorter than lead time. That is the reorder signal—even though 75% sell-through looks merely "fine" on a category chart.

When to reorder (and how many)

Two related formulas help brands propose a sane refill instead of repeating the opening order.

1. Cover-based reorder quantity (wholesale replenishment)

Altore's wholesale replenishment math is a clear template:

Reorder qty ≈ weekly sales × (lead time + target cover after receipt) − remaining stock

Continue the sock example. Weekly sales ≈ 11.3. Lead time = 3 weeks. Target cover after the refill lands = 4 weeks. Need ≈ 11.3 × (3 + 4) = 79 units over the horizon. Remaining = 30. Proposed reorder ≈ 79 − 30 ≈ 49 units.

Then split by the sizes and colors that actually sold—not the original size curve. A 1-2-2-1 opening order that only reorders L and XL is telling you the curve was wrong.

2. Reorder point (when inventory hits a tripwire)

Shopify's retailer-side reorder-point formula is useful when you (or the store) track on-hand continuously:

Reorder point = (daily sales velocity × lead time) + safety stock

At ~1.6 units/day and a 21-day lead time with 10 units of safety stock: ROP ≈ (1.6 × 21) + 10 ≈ 44 units. When on-hand reaches about 44, place the order so the refill arrives before a stockout.

For a brand proposing to a retailer, translate that into a conversation: "At your current rate you have about X weeks left; we can ship in Y weeks; here is a right-sized PO by SKU." That lands better than "time to reorder the full opening buy." More on the outreach side sits in how to get retailers to reorder.

Want quieter reorder follow-ups? Join Ordrly as a brand—Core is $0/month. Retailers can create a free retailer account to order and reorder in one place.

A worked outdoor example (illustrative numbers)

Say you ship the same 48-unit opening order of a hydration pack to two indie sporting-goods doors on the same day. These are made-up figures for teaching—not Ordrly customer results.

Same product, same wholesale price, same opening order. Store A needs a refill conversation this week. Store B needs a merchandising or assortment conversation—not another carton. High sell-through with thin cover and low sell-through with fat cover are both "action" signals; they are not the same action.

Common mistakes that wreck the number

• Celebrating sell-in. Shipping 500 units is not performance. Performance is what sold.

• Quoting a percentage with no period. "70% sell-through" over eight months is weak; over four weeks it can be strong.

• Overloading small doors. A boutique that overbought because of a high minimum and sold 12 of 48 will remember the stuck cash.

• Ignoring size-level sell-through. A style at 70% overall can be 85% on core sizes and 45% on extended sizes. Averages hide the imbalance.

• Never asking for the data. Brands that do not ask cannot fix anything. Reorder silence is not the same as sell-through.

Quiet first-order accounts still deserve a process. Our missed wholesale reorders guide and the free missed reorders calculator help quantify doors that never came back.

Where Ordrly fits today (honest)

Ordrly is built for the indie wholesale loop: catalog, connections, orders, and getting the next PO started without PDF ping-pong.

Live today (relevant to this topic):

• Wholesale catalog and ordering for brands and retailers

• Reorder recommendations from order history (cadence and prior buys—not a live register feed)

• Missed-reorders tooling and the Reorder Radar Shopify app for spotting reorder opportunities and inviting retailers onto Ordrly

• Brand analytics as listed on Ordrly for accounts you sell to on the network

Not live yet (roadmap / future):

• True observed retailer register or POS sell-through automatically driving the next PO

• Vendor-managed inventory from that signal

• Demand forecasting as a marketed live capability—treat fuller forecast-driven planning as a future feature

Until observed sales sources connect, the practical path is still: get units sold and on-hand (see the data guide), compute sell-through and weeks of supply, then propose a right-sized reorder.

FAQ

What is sell-through rate?

Sell-through rate is the percentage of inventory sold in a defined period compared with the inventory received (or otherwise available to sell) for that period. Wholesale buyers use it to judge whether a product earned its shelf space and whether to reorder.

How do you calculate sell-through rate?

Use (units sold ÷ units received) × 100 for a shipment-based read. Always name the period. Some teams also use units sold ÷ (opening stock + receipts) for a period-based read that is easier to compare month to month—do not mix the two without saying which one you used.

What is a good sell-through rate for wholesale brands?

It depends on category, season, and the buyer's replenishment model. Shopify often cites ~80% as a common retailer benchmark. RepSpark publishes wholesale category targets such as apparel 80%+, outdoor 65–80%, and footwear 75–85%, with lower warning thresholds. Ask each buyer their reorder threshold, and prefer your own history over any published range.

How do I use sell-through to decide when to reorder?

Convert remaining units into weeks of supply. When cover approaches your lead time (plus a small safety buffer), propose a reorder sized to weekly sales × (lead time + target cover) minus remaining stock. Confirm full-price vs markdown sales before chasing volume.

What is weeks of supply?

Weeks of supply (weeks of cover) is remaining units divided by the recent weekly sales rate. It answers "how long until this door runs out?" better than the sell-through percentage alone.

Is sell-through the same as inventory turnover?

No. Sell-through is a short-window unit percentage for a product or shipment. Inventory turnover is usually a longer-horizon money ratio for a whole assortment. Use sell-through for reorder and markdown decisions; use turnover for broader capital-efficiency questions.

Can Ordrly see my retailers' register sell-through today?

Not as an observed POS feed into the next PO. Ordrly today supports wholesale ordering, order-history reorder recommendations, missed-reorder tools, Reorder Radar, and in-network brand analytics. True register sell-through into replenishment remains next on the roadmap—not something to claim as live.

Start with the math, then make the ask

Sell-through rate is simple arithmetic with serious consequences. Pair the percentage with weeks of supply, lead time, and a full-price check. Then send a costed, size-aware reorder proposal—or a merchandising conversation if the cover is fat and the rate is soft.

Use Ordrly for what is live now—catalog, ordering, and reorder signals from order history—while you collect stockist sales the practical way.

Brands: Join Ordrly as a brand. Core is $0/month, with the same software on every plan.

Retailers: Create your free retailer account to order and reorder from the brands you carry in one place.