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A range is reported as a count and a revenue line. Whatever the company calls them — SKUs, listings, titles, part numbers, models, brands — the count goes up, the revenue goes up, and nobody divides one by the other. The cost of carrying one item is real and never stated: listing it and maintaining its data, forecasting it, holding it, giving it shelf or slot, changing a line over to make it, and the planning attention it consumes all sit in overheads that are never divided by the item count. So every item looks free to keep, and only the revenue it adds is visible. This pack turns it into a sort and a multiplication. Sort by revenue, draw a line, and multiply the items below it by what carrying one costs; multiply their revenue by the tail's own margin rather than the range's, which always overstates it. Then the question that actually decides it: if those items went, some of what they sold would move to the rest of the range and would earn the rest's margin, which is higher — so the whole decision reduces to the break-even substitution share, how much of the tail's revenue has to move for pruning to be worth doing. It stops on five conditions: no item count, no revenue, no line drawn, no carrying cost, and no margin on the tail.
What is the Assortment Strategy Pack
The Assortment Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: how much of what you sell earns its place, and what would happen if the rest went? It is built around one organizing claim: breadth is bought with money no one allocates, so every item looks free to keep. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a range model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced ranges, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
Breadth is bought with money that sits in overheads nobody divides by the number of items, so every item on the list looks free to keep. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The carrying cost — what one item costs to keep, and what the tail costs to carry. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the cost of carrying a SKU is missing
Not because anybody is hiding it. Because no reporting requirement asks for it and because it does not sit in one place: it is assembled from four or five overhead lines that each belong to somebody else, in merchandising, planning, the warehouse, and the plant, and none of them has ever been asked to divide their number by the item count.
There is a second reason. In most companies the person who adds items is measured on how many the company sells, and removals belong to no one at all. So the range only moves in one direction, and the question of what an item costs to keep has never had a reason to be asked.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. Sort the range by revenue, draw a line, and multiply the items below it by what carrying one costs; multiply their revenue by their own margin rather than the range's. Then the whole decision reduces to one figure — how much of the tail's revenue has to move to the rest for pruning to be worth doing.
What is in the Assortment Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why the carrying cost is never stated, the arithmetic, what a narrow range buys, and the five halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or a merchandising review, with nine sourced ranges and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Range model. Eleven candidate substitution shares across the columns, what the tail costs to carry, and the break-even share.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next range decision cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced ranges — three deliberately narrow, one deliberately broad and profitable, one that pruned a hundred brands, and one that cut the wrong thing.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the count, the sort, the carrying cost, the tail's margin, and what the evidence says would move.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. Counting the range, drawing the line, assembling the carrying cost, the tail's own margin, the substitution evidence, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Assortment Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive whose item count has doubled while revenue has not; a chief financial officer who suspects the tail is expensive and has no number for it; a merchandising or category director defending a range against a cost argument no one has quantified; a chief operating officer watching changeovers multiply; a board member reading a count with no cost beside it; a private equity operating partner looking for margin that does not require a price rise; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case 18,400 items produce $2.6bn of revenue, or $141,304 per item, while the 62 percent of items in the tail carry 11 percent of revenue, or $25,070 each. That tail contributes $40.0m and costs $33.1m to carry, so it pays for itself, which is the answer that usually ends the discussion. It is the wrong test: only 9.4 percent of its revenue has to move for pruning to be worth doing, and at the 45 percent the company's own delisting data supports, pruning is worth $26.5m a year.
Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast the substitution share — that figure is your own judgment, and the Model tab sweeps it precisely because no one can settle it in advance. It does not handle a disposal: selling a brand has proceeds and a buyer, and deleting an item has neither. It does not price what the range signals, and a customer who comes because you carry everything is buying breadth itself. And it says nothing about what else an item is doing — Sears cut a $3.3bn catalog and with it the data infrastructure it needed when it launched online retail in 1997.
This decision, in two minutes
Short videos on companies that faced it, built from the casebooks this pack draws on.
Questions about the Assortment Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and eight supporting rows. What the tail costs to carry against what it contributes, and the break-even substitution share — how much of the tail's revenue has to move to the rest of the range for pruning to be worth doing. Around them: items in the tail, revenue per item across the range and inside the tail, whether the tail pays for itself, the net effect at your own substitution figure, the tail's share of items against its share of revenue, and what one more item costs to add against what an average one earns. The Model tab sweeps the substitution share, and one row turns from No to Yes at the point where pruning starts being worth doing.
- Are you saying we should cut the range?
- No, and one of the four readings is a tail that needs no defense. TJX earned $4.9bn of net income on $56.4bn of sales in fiscal 2025 with a deliberately broad, unpredictable assortment — where breadth is the product, the carrying cost is a price chosen rather than a leak. What the pack refuses is the argument that an item is free to keep because no one has priced keeping it.
- Our tail is profitable.
- Probably, on the range margin. Compute it on the tail, with its smaller batches, worse terms, and no negotiating position, and then note that profitability is not the test: revenue that moves to the rest of the range earns the rest's margin rather than the tail's, so a tail that covers its carrying cost can still be worth pruning.
- Does this only apply to retailers?
- No. It applies wherever a company carries a countable range: manufacturers with part numbers, publishers with titles, software firms with editions, distributors with listings, restaurant groups with menu items, banks with product variants. The inputs are named in items, dollars, and percentages rather than in shelf space.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced ranges: Trader Joe's, Costco, Aldi, TJX, Dollar General, Procter & Gamble, H&M, Gap, and Sears. Each is dated, read through what was carried and what it produced, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Trader Joe's, Costco, and Aldi hold the narrow end and TJX the broad one; without both the set would teach that narrower is always better, which it is not. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Assortment Strategy Pack?
- The Assortment Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: How much of what you sell earns its place? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, range model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: breadth is bought with money that sits in overheads nobody divides by the number of items, so every item on the list looks free to keep. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Assortment Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Assortment Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why the carrying cost is never stated, the arithmetic, what a narrow range buys, and the five halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or a merchandising review, with nine sourced ranges and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Range model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate substitution shares across the columns, what the tail costs to carry, and the break-even share. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next range decision cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced ranges — three deliberately narrow, one deliberately broad and profitable, one that pruned a hundred brands, and one that cut the wrong thing. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the count, the sort, the carrying cost, the tail's margin, and what the evidence says would move. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Counting the range, drawing the line, assembling the carrying cost, the tail's own margin, the substitution evidence, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Assortment Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.