Reorder points for a small beauty store: the two-week rule

Stores that run out of CeraVe or edge control rarely get the arithmetic wrong — they get the inputs wrong. Transit time stands in for lead time, a feeling stands in for last month's sales, and the order is "a pack" instead of a number.

Here is the method for a small beauty-supply shelf: one formula for when to order, one rule for how much, and a count that fits into a weekday morning.

The formula

For every SKU you intend to keep on the shelf:

Reorder point = average daily unit sales × lead time in days + safety stock

When the count on hand — shelf plus backroom — drops to that number, the SKU goes on the next order. Not when the shelf looks thin: a badly faced shelf looks thin with two packs sitting in the backroom.

Average daily sales is the easy input. Take units sold over the last four weeks from your POS and divide by 28 — calendar days, because lead time is counted in calendar days too. Four weeks smooths out a slow week without hiding a trend.

Lead time is order-to-shelf

Lead time is not transit time. It runs from placing the order to units on the shelf with a price on them:

• Approval and dispatch. Orders approved by 2:15 PM MT ship the same business day. Approved at 2:30 PM, it ships the next business day.
• Transit. UPS Ground from our Mountain West fulfillment center takes 1–5 business days in the contiguous US — Chicago 3, Newark 4–5.
• Weekends. UPS Ground counts business days. Your register counts every day the door is open.
• Receiving. A day to check cartons against the pick ticket, price and shelve.

Run it for Chicago. An order approved Wednesday morning ships that afternoon, is delivered Monday and shelved Tuesday — six days. A Friday order that misses the cutoff ships Monday and is shelved the following Friday. Plan on seven.

Plan Newark on the long end of its 4–5 days. Five business days of transit always spans a weekend, so an order approved before the cutoff is eight days to the shelf, whatever the weekday. Miss it on a Friday and it's eleven.

One adjustment: a SKU marked Inbound on the pricelist is on a purchase order due within 10 days. Add those days to its lead time.

Safety stock, by rule of thumb

Safety stock covers the week that doesn't go to plan: a scalp oil that catches on social media, a stylist who buys six edge controls, an order line that misses the first carton. Our fill rate is 98.2% over the trailing 90 days — which still leaves nearly two units in every hundred.

The textbook version uses standard deviations. For a few hundred SKUs, a rule of thumb does the job:

• Steady sellers: half of lead-time demand. With a seven-day lead time, that's half a week of sales.
• SKUs that have run out before, or that ride on a promotion: a full lead time of demand.
• New items: start at half and review after four weeks.

Round it up to a whole unit, never down to zero. Zero safety stock is a plan to run out in any above-average week — roughly half of them.

The two-week rule

The reorder point tells you when. The two-week rule tells you how much:

Order up to the reorder point plus two weeks of sales, then round up to the inner pack.

In numbers: target stock = daily sales × (14 + lead time) + safety stock, and the order is the target minus what's on hand. Order right at the reorder point and that's exactly two weeks of sales. Count late and land below it, and the order grows by the shortfall — which is the point.

Then round up, never down. Most SKUs sell in inner packs of 6 or 12, so 28 on a 6-pack item becomes 30, and 40 on a 12-pack item becomes 48. Rounding down builds a shortage into the order before it ships.

Why two weeks: it keeps the backroom small, it matches how our accounts already buy staples — every two to three weeks — and it's the line on our own pricelist, where Low stock means under two weeks of cover. Skin and body care ships with at least 12 months to expiry, so dating is never the constraint.

A worked example

A Chicago store: seven-day lead time, safety stock at half of lead-time demand. With seven days of lead time, lead-time demand is simply one week of sales.

Read the Cantu row. Fourteen a week is two a day; seven days of lead time is 14 units, plus 7 of safety stock — reorder at 21. Two weeks of sales is 28, the pack is 6, so the order is 30. The edge control rounds harder, 40 to 48, because it comes in 12s — under three extra days of sales on a SKU that turns 20 a week.

Batching around $140 and $1,250

The math runs SKU by SKU. Orders don't. Reorders have a $140 minimum, and freight is free at $1,250 and up in the contiguous US — below that, it's billed at cost. Both favor fewer, larger orders:

• Pick one order day. Count, then put every SKU at or below its reorder point on one order. Approve by 2:15 PM MT — 3:15 PM in Chicago, 4:15 PM in Newark — and it ships that day.
• Pull forward near misses. A SKU a few days from its reorder point rides along now instead of forcing an order next week.
• Mix lines. The minimum is per order, not per line — edge control, lashes and petroleum jelly share a carton.
• Check the gap to $1,250. Just short? Pull forward the next-closest staples. If getting there means a month of slow movers in the backroom, pay the freight.

Full master cases take an extra 4% off — worth it when the case sells through in six weeks or less. On anything slower, 4% doesn't cover the cash and backroom shelf the case ties up; planning a hair care wall runs the numbers on a 48-count case.

How to count

Reorder points only work on a real count. The POS number drifts — mis-scans, shrink, a damaged unit never written off — so count the shelf and the backroom, not the screen.

• A-items weekly. The top sellers that make most of your unit sales, counted on order day.
• The tail monthly. Everything else, once a month on a fixed date.
• Count in units, not packs. The pack only matters when you round the order.
• Receive against the pick ticket. Report damage, shortage or a mis-pick to accounts@urbanbuycommerce.com within 14 days of delivery, with photos and the pick-ticket number. An unclaimed shortage becomes a hole in next week's count — receiving a wholesale delivery walks through the check.

Red flags

• A SKU at zero twice in a quarter. Raise its safety stock from half to a full lead time of demand, and check whether sales have moved.
• A SKU above target eight weeks running. Lower the reorder point or move it to the monthly count.
• Orders that miss the cutoff. A late approval adds a business day — three calendar days on a Friday. If it happens monthly, add a day to lead time.
• Shelving that takes three days, not one. Time your last three orders from approval to shelf. If receiving is the slow step, fix the backroom, not the formula.