Beauty Store Replenishment: Balancing Routine Stock, Promotions and Store-Specific Demand

Beauty Store Replenishment: How to Balance Routine Replenishment, Promotional Stocking and Store-Specific Demand

When a sunscreen product enters a summer promotion, some stores need to stock up in advance, while stores that are not participating in the campaign continue replenishing according to their regular demand. In addition, one store may experience concentrated weekend traffic and need its own stocking arrangement even without participating in a promotion.

For a brand’s merchandising team, the challenge is to manage these demands within one replenishment framework: routine replenishment should remain stable, promotional stores should be adjusted in time, and genuine differences at individual stores should also be considered. If the stocking target is increased for only a few stores but the standard used by all stores is changed, other stores may also place unnecessarily large orders. If a separate arrangement is maintained for every store, ongoing adjustments will become increasingly complicated.

A replenishment strategy should clearly define the stores, products and business reasons covered by each adjustment, while distinguishing temporary demand from long-term changes. PEKON’s suggested ordering function provides configuration and verification support through differentiated parameters, ordering rules and suggested-quantity simulations.

Group Routine Replenishment by Operating Differences

Routine replenishment standards should reflect the actual conditions of stores and products. Stores with different sales volumes, supply cycles and inventory turnover may require different stocking arrangements. Stores with similar operating conditions, however, can reuse the same replenishment methods and parameters.

This allows headquarters to adjust the routine stocking standard for a group of stores without maintaining each store individually. At the same time, when a small number of stores have genuinely different needs, store- and product-specific settings can be retained.

For example, if the store with concentrated weekend traffic consistently experiences high weekend sales and replenishes during the week, the merchandising team can determine an appropriate stocking standard by considering sales volume, delivery arrangements and remaining inventory. Its ongoing demand does not need to be repeatedly handled as a temporary request, and the routine arrangements for other stores do not need to be changed as a result.

If more stores with similar operating conditions require the same adjustment, the standard for that group should be reassessed to reduce the continued accumulation of store-specific settings.

Define Which Stores and Products Need Adjustments

Promotional stocking should first define the participation scope. Which stores are participating, which products require additional stock and when the products need to arrive should all serve as the basis for adjustment. The fact that sunscreen is included in a promotion does not mean that facial cleanser in the same store should also be increased. A promotion in several stores does not mean that all stores should raise their stocking targets.

The same sunscreen product can be managed differently according to the following operating situations:

Store Operating Situation	Replenishment Arrangement	Key Adjustment Point
Not participating in the promotion, with no significant change in routine demand	Continue using the routine replenishment standard suitable for the store	Do not increase its stocking level because other stores are running a promotion
Participating in the promotion and requiring advance stocking	Adjust according to promotional demand, existing inventory and arrival time	Limit the adjustment to participating stores and products, and define when it will be reviewed
An individual store has a different long-term sales rhythm	Retain a store- and product-specific arrangement	Determine whether the setting should be retained long term and avoid repeated temporary adjustments

In the system, simply wanting to stock several additional days and needing to change the calculation method or store order quantity limits are different types of adjustments.

If the existing calculation method remains in use, parameters such as the number of stocking days referenced by the formula can be adjusted and limited to the relevant stores and products. If a different formula or quantity validation method is required, a separate applicable rule must be configured and its effective scope confirmed. Modifying a parameter for one store alone does not mean that the promotional rule has also become effective only for that store.

When the same store has both a long-term differentiated arrangement and a short-term promotion, the business team should clarify which setting applies to the current adjustment. The two arrangements should not simply be added together, and the long-term difference that still needs to be retained should not be mistakenly deleted after the promotion ends.

Check the Impact Before Adjustments and Review Plans After Promotions

Before adjusting a strategy, the team can select representative stores that are not participating in the promotion, stores that are participating, and stores with existing store-specific settings. The calculation results for the same sunscreen product can then be checked across these stores.

During the comparison, the business data used for calculation, such as sales and inventory, should remain unchanged. Only the rule or parameter being tested should be adjusted. This helps the merchandising team determine whether changes in the suggested quantity are caused by the current adjustment and whether non-participating stores are still being calculated as expected. Even when the suggested quantities remain the same, the team should also verify whether the adjustable ordering range for each store still matches the original arrangement.

Before applying the change in bulk, the expected coverage and potentially affected stores and products should be reviewed, especially non-participating stores, non-promotional products and stores that already have differentiated settings.

After the promotion ends, a designated owner should review the temporary settings and subsequent stocking requirements. Promotional rules that need to be closed and temporary parameters should be handled separately, followed by a check to confirm whether stores have returned to the expected arrangement. The restored standard should also be assessed against actual sales and remaining inventory. Simply changing the settings back does not complete the review.

This process also helps distinguish between two situations: a temporary increase caused by a single promotion can be ended after the campaign, while an ongoing sales change should be incorporated into the next adjustment of the routine replenishment standard.

Differentiated Replenishment Strategy Maintenance and Simulation with PEKON

PEKON software supports the maintenance of ordering parameters by store, operating model, product and tag, which can then be used by suggested-order formulas. Parameters for a specific store and product can take priority over the parameters of the corresponding store group, avoiding the need to change the settings for an entire group because of the needs of a small number of stores.

Ordering rules define settings such as calculation formulas, product scope and quantity validation. Once the relevant rules are enabled and linked to the applicable ordering types, they participate in the calculation. Store-specific parameters provide the specific values required by the formulas. During implementation, the applicable scope of rules and parameters should be confirmed separately so that the arrangements defined by the business are consistent with the actual calculation results.

Brands can also use suggested-quantity simulations to verify the rules actually applied to each store and the resulting suggested quantities, then export the results for the merchandising team to review. Specific parameter values can be checked against configuration records. By combining routine standard maintenance, store-specific settings and simulations before changes are applied, replenishment strategies can continue to adapt to promotions and store operations.