Section
Procurement intelligence from a working purchasing desk.
Practical buying frameworks, numbers, and tools you can actually use on an order day.
Buyer Education · Inventory Math
No. 01
Weeks of supply, days on hand, same number in a different outfit. It’s the one that tells you whether that pile of eighths in the back room is a cushion or a coffin. One division problem, five ways the number lies, and the order-day math that turns it into an order.
By John Hirsch
Read the pieceThe sticky note
48 ÷ 12 = 4 weeks × 7 = 28 daysSame number, counted in days
Same shelf, six very different moods
Weeks of supply · fictional SKUs
Assortment Strategy
No. 02
The ladder, at a glance
Dashed amber: the empty ounce column. The rung that was missing.
How to see what your shelf is actually saying before a vendor tells you what it should say.
Free toolThe one-page Assortment Ladder template, by email.
By John Hirsch
Read the pieceFrom “Days on Hand”
“An empty rung is a question. A full rung with fifteen weeks of supply is a question too, just a more expensive one.”
Evergreen · filed by buying problem
Frameworks that don’t expire. Each piece is labeled with the problem it helps you solve at the desk.
Inventory Math
Weeks of supply in plain language: one division problem, five ways the number lies, and the order-day math.
Assortment Strategy
How to see what your shelf is actually saying before a vendor tells you what it should say. With a free one-page template.
Timely · dated · from order day
What’s moving, what’s priced wrong, and what changed with vendors this month. Read these for what’s happening now. Read Buyer Education for how to think about it.
Nothing filed yet
Dated notes from the desk will run here: category movement, pricing observations, vendor strategy and sell-through, each stamped with the month it applies to.
Meanwhile, in Market Watch · July to August 2026Shoppers Stick With Value Ounces as Disposables Squeeze Out the CartReadComing to The Buy Sheet