Sell-Through Rate

Definition: items, not units

Retail guides count units of a SKU (example: 200 identical T-shirts, 150 sold, 75%). Second-hand stock is mostly one-offs, so you count items instead, and that changes three things:

• One listing, one item. Three tops sold together as one lot are one item in stock and one item when sold.
• A relisted piece is the same item. Deleting and reposting does not add to "items added".
• Only completed orders count as sold. A cancelled or returned order goes back into stock.

Worked example for a reseller

Choosing the period and what counts as listed

30% over 30 days and 30% over 90 days describe very different shops, so always state the period. One sale moves the rate by 1 ÷ items available. Example: with 20 items available, each sale is 5 percentage points, so a weekly rate jumps around; with 200 items, each sale is half a point.

Our rule of thumb for the period:

• 30 days if most categories get several sales a month.
• 90 days for slow or expensive categories with one or two sales a month.
• Weekly only if you list at volume.

Everything listed during the period goes into the base, even if it went up on the last day. Example of the rescale: 60% over 90 days becomes 20% per 30 days, though older stock rarely sells evenly. For how long individual pieces take, track days to sell alongside the rate.

Per category and per marketplace

A single blended rate hides where stock piles up. Split the example month by category:

The blended 30% looks acceptable, yet tops sold 2 of 25. If a category stays below your blended rate for two periods in a row, check its prices before buying more of it. If it still doesn't move, see how to liquidate unsold inventory.

Per marketplace works the same way, with one decision to make first. If a piece is listed on both Vinted and OLX, count it in each marketplace's base and credit the sale only to the one where it sold. The marketplace rates then describe where things sell, while your total still counts that piece once.

Setting your own target from your history

The rate depends on your categories, prices and period, so build the target from your own counts:

• Calculate the rate per category for your last three periods of the same length.
• Note the lowest and the middle result for each category.
• Use the lowest as the warning line: below it, check prices or stop buying that category.
• Use the middle as the target for the next period.
• Raise the target only if margin for those periods held; a rate lifted by price cuts is not progress.

Example: jackets ran 45%, 60% and 52% over three months. The warning line is 45% and the target 52%. A month at 70% after dropping prices by a third is a pricing question, not a win.

Sell-through vs inventory turnover

Example: over 90 days you sold items that cost you 1,800 zł, and stock at cost averaged 1,400 zł (1,500 zł at the start, 1,300 zł at the end). Turnover is about 1.3, or roughly 70 days to sell through stock at that pace. The inventory turnover calculator runs that sum, and the inventory management guide shows what to record per item so both numbers are easy to pull. Two neighbouring terms have entries of their own: days to sell, the clock behind the rate, and market liquidity, which folds speed and certainty of a sale into one idea.

Why other sellers can't be your benchmark

Your own sales are known: you shipped the parcel. For other sellers you only see listings vanish, and a vanished listing can be a sale, a withdrawal, a relist or a deal agreed elsewhere. That is why reva describes its market data as items that left the market rather than sold.

Treat any "average sell-through for resellers" as unproven unless it says how sales were confirmed. Before buying, ask instead how likely comparable listings are to leave the market within a set window; checking demand before you buy works through that.

Common mistakes

• Comparing a 30-day rate with a 90-day rate without rescaling.
• Measuring straight after a big restock: new pieces count in full but have had little time to sell.
• Counting a relisted piece as a new item, which inflates the base.
• Reading a high rate as good news on its own: pricing too low also raises it, so check margin for the same period.
• Blending all categories into one number and missing the slow group.
• Calling other sellers' vanished listings their sell-through.