Overview
A markdown planner helps ecommerce merchandising teams decide which SKUs should move into clearance, which products should stay protected, and which sale moves need margin approval before launch. Juno turns SKU lists, inventory notes, sell-through signals, storefront context, and channel constraints into a reusable markdown plan table plus a short clearance brief.
This is not a pricing-system replacement. It is the planning layer that usually lives in a spreadsheet, a weekly review doc, and a few scattered comments about aging stock, broken size runs, and "maybe include this in the sale."
Why you should make markdown decisions visible
Clearance work is easy to under-document because the pressure is practical: move stock, protect margin, and do not train shoppers to wait for discounts. But markdown decisions affect product storytelling, email calendars, sale-page merchandising, paid support, and what the team believes about demand.
Inventory-to-sales ratios are a common way to read how much stock retailers are carrying against sales; the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis publishes a U.S. retail series that shows this relationship over time (FRED retail inventories to sales ratio). At the product level, the same discipline matters: stock pressure only becomes useful when it is connected to timing, channel, and margin-safe action.
Sale presentation also needs operational clarity. Shopify's own guidance on sale prices notes that sale display depends on how price and compare-at price are set and rendered by the storefront theme (Shopify Help Center). A markdown plan helps teams decide the move before someone edits product data or campaign copy.
Step-by-step
- 1Confirm the store, planning window, currency, clearance scope, margin guardrails, and channels the merchandising team wants to consider.
- 2Review the SKU, product, collection, inventory, sell-through, price, and margin context already available in the workspace or supplied by the user.
- 3Separate true clearance candidates from products that need a hold, a merchandising fix, a stock check, or a margin review before any discount is recommended.
- 4Prioritize markdown moves by SKU or collection, including proposed depth, timing, channel, rationale, owner, confidence, and review status.
- 5Update the clearance brief with the recommended sale moves, hold list, approval gaps, channel handoffs, and the next decisions for the ecommerce merchandising manager.
- 6Reuse the same table and brief on weekly refreshes so the team can compare decisions instead of rebuilding the workbook.
Frequently asked questions
Does this require Shopify or another ecommerce integration?
No. The default workflow can start from uploaded exports, pasted SKU lists, existing workspace tables, planning notes, and visible storefront context. Connected commerce data can improve confidence later, but it is not required for the installed workspace.
What does this replace?
It replaces the narrow markdown planning workbook and recurring clearance review notes. It does not replace pricing approval, inventory systems, promotion execution, or financial sign-off.
How often should a markdown planner run?
Run it once for a focused clearance review, or weekly during seasonal exits, end-of-line cleanup, high-stock periods, or active sale planning. The weekly cadence should update the same markdown plan and clearance brief.
What happens when margin data is missing?
Juno should still prepare the plan, but margin-sensitive recommendations stay conditional. The table should clearly mark the missing cost, margin, or approval input so the team knows what to verify before launch.