Method and system for managing clearance items

A method of determining an optimal selloff schedule for a clearance inventory item, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a clearance schedule tool, a selection of an inventory item for clearance, the inventory item being included in a collection of inventory items of a department of a retailer, the inventory item being different from a plurality of related inventory items;
• accessing, at the clearance scheduling tool, historical sales data including sales data for product markdowns for the plurality of related inventory items in a department of an enterprise system, the historical sales data not including sales data for the inventory item for clearance, the department including the collection of inventory items including the plurality of related inventory items;
• generating a set of possible discount schedules for the item, each possible discount schedule of the set defining a set of prices and associated price durations, the prices representing progressive, decreasing discounts between a retail price and a predetermined sales level based at least in part on a salvage value of the inventory item;
• for at least some of the possible discount schedules, providing the discount schedule to a sales forecast tool that provides a sales performance of the item based on the historical sales data for the plurality of related inventory items in the department;
• selecting an optimal selloff schedule for the inventory item from among the possible discount schedules based on comparison of the sales performance of the possible discount schedules;
• and
• displaying an output including the selected optimal selloff schedule and a predicted sales forecast for the inventory item, wherein selecting the optimal selloff schedule is performed in response to user selection of a selloff schedule maximizing revenue obtained for the inventory item.

A system for managing clearance inventory items of an enterprise system, the system comprising:

• at least one computing system comprising a processor and a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory storing instructions executable by the processor, including a clearance scheduling tool which, when executed, causes the computing system to:
• receive a selection of an inventory item for clearance alongside a clearance program type and a clearance program duration, the inventory item being included in a collection of inventory items of a department of a retailer, the inventory item being different from a plurality of related inventory items;
• receive historical sales data including sales data for product markdowns for the plurality of related inventory items in a department of an enterprise system, the historical sales data not including sales data for the inventory item for clearance, the department including the collection of inventory items including the plurality of related inventory items;
• generate a set of possible discount schedules for the item, each possible discount schedule of the set defining a set of prices and associated price durations, the prices representing progressive, decreasing discounts between a retail price and a predetermined sales level based at least in part on a salvage value of the inventory item, the price durations aggregating to not exceed the clearance program duration;
• determine a subset of the possible discount schedules as being possible candidate discount schedules;
• for each of the possible candidate discount schedules, provide the possible candidate discount schedule to a sales forecast tool that provides a sales performance of the item based on the historical sales data for the plurality of related inventory items in the department;
• select an optimal selloff schedule for the inventory item from among the possible candidate discount schedules by maximizing revenue performance of the possible candidate discount schedules;
• and
• display an output including the selected optimal selloff schedule and a predicted sales forecast for the inventory item, wherein selecting the optimal selloff schedule is performed in response to user selection of a selloff schedule maximizing revenue obtained for the inventory item.