When to discount slow-moving stock — and how to decide from the numbers

Most stores handle discounts the same way: they don't, until they have to. A product stops selling, nobody notices for a while, and it sits. Then inventory count comes around, or the season turns, or the shelf is needed for something new — and suddenly it all gets dumped into one clearance at forty or fifty percent off. The markdown feels like the problem, but the markdown was just the bill arriving. The real cost was the two or three months the item sat there not selling while you waited to admit it.

A discount is a decision you can make on purpose, from your sales numbers, weeks before it becomes a rescue mission. The question is never just "should this be on sale." It's which items, how much, and — the part everyone gets wrong — when.

Why waiting is the expensive part

Every unit sitting on your shelf is cash you already spent, parked in a spot another product could be using. A slow item costs you twice: once for the money tied up in it, and again for the sale you didn't make because a better-moving product wasn't in that space. The longer you wait, the deeper the discount you'll eventually need to move it — a product you could have cleared at fifteen percent off in month two often needs fifty percent off in month five, because now it's dated, dusty, or out of season.

Discounting early and shallow almost always beats discounting late and deep. A small markdown while an item still has some demand recovers most of your money and frees the shelf fast. A big markdown after the demand is gone is just choosing how much of the loss you'll take. Reading the numbers early is what lets you take the small version.

The warning signs, before the shelf goes stale

You don't need a forecast to spot a markdown candidate — you need to notice when an item's own pace has dropped. A product that sold a few units a week and has now gone two or three weeks with none isn't "between customers." A seasonal line still on the shelf two weeks after the season's peak is on the clock. A new product that got one burst of curiosity and then flatlined is telling you the trial is over. None of these are dramatic; that's exactly why they get missed.

How to read the numbers before you mark anything down

You don't need a complicated model. Pull sales by product for the last sixty to ninety days and sort by units sold, worst to best. The bottom of that list is your discount shortlist. For each candidate, ask three plain questions: how long has it been slow, how many units are still on hand, and is it perishable, seasonal, or dated in any way. Those three answers tell you both whether to discount and how urgently.

1. Sort products by units sold over the last 60–90 days, slowest first.
2. For the slowest, check weeks-since-last-sale — a steady zero is your signal, not a single quiet week.
3. Weigh it against quantity on hand: ten units stuck matters more than two.
4. Discount early and shallow on anything seasonal or dated; a small cut now beats a deep one later.
5. Set a review date — if it hasn't moved in two more weeks, go one step deeper, don't wait for clearance.

The point of a review date is to make the next decision automatic. Most stock lingers not because the first discount was wrong, but because nobody ever looked at it again. A quick recheck every couple of weeks turns one big painful clearance into a series of small, cheap corrections.

The mistake: the blanket sale

When a store finally decides to "run a sale," the usual move is to discount across the board — twenty percent off everything, or a whole category on clearance. It feels decisive, but it quietly gives away margin on the products that were selling fine at full price. You didn't need to discount your steady sellers to move the three items that were actually stuck; you just trained your customers to wait for the next sale. A targeted markdown on the specific slow items protects the margin on everything else.

One thing to do this week

Pull your product sales for the last sixty days and look at the bottom ten items by units sold. Cross out anything that's genuinely new and still finding its audience. From what's left, pick the three that have the most stock sitting and the least reason to hold — off-season, dated, or just plain quiet — and mark them down now, this week, while they still have some pull. Don't wait for a clearance event to give you permission.

Where CornerPilot fits

The reason merchants default to one big clearance is that checking sell-through product by product, every two weeks, is tedious in raw Clover reports. CornerPilot connects to your Clover data on a scheduled sync and gives you clear sales history by product and by period, so the slow items surface on their own instead of hiding until inventory count. It won't set your prices or promise a profit figure — it just keeps the slow-mover list in front of you early, when a small markdown is still enough.

If you run more than one location, the same view shows an item that's dead in one store and still selling in another — sometimes the answer isn't a discount at all, but a move. See how it works on the features page, or view pricing when you're ready.

What actually changes

Deciding markdowns from the numbers doesn't mean discounting more — it usually means discounting less, and earlier. You catch slow items while a small cut still moves them, you stop giving away margin on products that were selling fine, and you walk into inventory count without a pallet of dead stock waiting for a fire sale. The clearance shrinks because the decisions happened one at a time, on purpose, weeks before it would have hurt.