Makeup Seasonal Sales Planning in the UK: Cash, Stock and Ads

Start With the Measures That Drive Decisions

Use measures for distinct decisions. Sales show demand; use realised revenue from delivered orders, excluding cancelled and returned orders. Act when it is materially below plan, or promotion lifts sales without improving economics.

Contribution margin is what remains after product cost and advertising. Use it to decide whether to scale a product, collection or campaign: do not spend more when contribution after advertising falls despite rising revenue. ORVX reports this profitability by product and collection.

Stock cover links available units to expected weekly sales: reduce purchasing or promote excessive slow stock; protect availability before replenishment. Cash timing tests whether payments, ad spend and refunds precede customer cash; act on funding gaps despite healthy margin. Use MER for store efficiency and attributed ROAS for campaigns; investigate divergence. ORVX tracks both separately.

Read Your Own Seasonal Pattern

Use Shopify order history for a monthly view, split by product and channel, and check whether rises repeat across multiple years, products and channels. Broad, repeated rises suggest genuine seasonal peaks; isolated jumps may reflect promotion, launch, influencer mention or tracking issue. Treat recurring lows as slower periods, checking whether fewer customers, lower order value or narrower product mix caused them.

In the computed worked example, check the monthly total, then trace it to the product and channel figures to distinguish whole-store movement from one SKU or channel distorting the total. Do not generalise beyond its periods and dimensions.

Shopify shows when demand arrived; profitability shows whether it was useful. ORVX connects Shopify data, computes costs from a product cost model, derives gross and net profit, and reports contribution after advertising by product and collection. Compare these before repeating a revenue peak.

Plan Stock Before the Peak

Set a demand assumption for each product, not one uplift for the whole shop. Use comparable completed months, planned promotion dates and supplier lead times; treat a new shade or launch as a separate assumption because it has no equivalent sales history. Place stock far enough ahead of the campaign to receive, check and merchandise it, then stagger slower launches rather than tying up cash too early.

For each SKU, calculate the reorder point as expected sales during supplier lead time plus safety stock. A product selling 10 units a week with a three-week lead time and 10 units of safety stock has a reorder point of 40 units. Compare that trigger with available stock, planned units and expected sell-through. ORVX shows inventory position, dead stock and remaining stock value, helping identify cash tied up in slow shades or excess formats. Use the inventory reorder calculator to check the arithmetic.

Set Ad Budgets Across the Year

A fixed percentage of realised sales is simple: allocate, for example, 10% of delivered-order revenue to ads. If sales are £20,000, the budget is £2,000; if sales fall to £12,000, it becomes £1,200. That protects the ratio but can underfund a growth opportunity before a peak and overspend when sales are high but margins are weak. Use it when demand and product mix are relatively stable.

A contribution-margin budget links spend to what remains after product costs and other variable costs. If a palette sells for £30 and leaves £18 before advertising, a £12 target acquisition cost leaves £6 contribution after advertising. A target-CAC method then sets spend from required customers: £1,200 at a £12 CAC funds 100 acquired customers. Use contribution margin when economics vary, and target CAC when acquisition and repeat value are measurable. Increase spend before a repeatedly strong seasonal window only while contribution and CAC thresholds hold; hold it when they do; reduce or stop campaigns when advertising consumes available contribution. ORVX reports contribution after advertising by product and collection and tracks MER separately from attributed ROAS.

Protect Cash While Sales Build

A profitable seasonal plan can still squeeze cash. Before a purchase order, map supplier deposit, balance and fulfilment costs against customer receipts; 30-day terms may fund part of the stock cycle, unlike upfront payment. Allow for refunds and returns, and ads charged before orders are paid out. VAT collected is not operating cash. A UK business must register for VAT when its taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, the VAT threshold (GOV.UK, When to register for VAT). Keep profitability and funding views: does selling a palette cover product cost, fulfilment, returns, VAT effects and advertising, and can each bill be paid before profit arrives? ORVX calculates realised revenue from delivered orders only, never counting returned or cancelled orders as revenue, and shows product and collection profitability, return rate by units and refund value against revenue. Use these to set an affordable purchase order and ad payment schedule; profit and cash timing must both work (Source: GOV.UK (HM Revenue & Customs)).

Review What Happened After the Peak

After the peak, compare the forecast with delivered-order revenue, not orders placed. If you forecast £12,000 and realised £10,800, accuracy was 90%; identify whether the gap came from weak demand, stockouts or cancellations. Record each stockout’s dates and missed sales, then value leftover inventory at cost and flag products unlikely to sell before their next seasonal window. Review gross margin by product and collection, including discounting and returns, rather than judging the season on revenue alone.

Review ad spend against both MER and attributed ROAS: MER shows total-store efficiency, while attributed ROAS shows performance credited to campaigns. Check return rate by units and refund value against revenue, then reconcile supplier payments, ad bills, refunds and Shopify payouts to see when cash was tied up. Repeat changes supported by evidence: earlier buying for a recurring stockout, or a proven budget shift. Treat one-off corrections separately, such as an unexpected influencer mention, supplier delay or tracking error. ORVX can show realised revenue, product profitability, inventory, returns and both ad measures from connected Shopify and advertising data; keep cash timing and unusual events in the review notes.

A useful UK seasonal plan links the pattern in your own orders to three decisions: how much stock to commit, how much cash to reserve and how much advertising to fund. Review those decisions against actual margin, availability and cash movement so the next peak is based on evidence rather than a generic retail calendar.