RCSC $205$ Merchandise Planning and Control Six$-$Month Plan Assignment$-$Part $1$

$[$Use the Excel spreadsheet blank template that is provided.

Save your work as an Excel file, and upload that file to D$2$L$.]$

As a new buyer at XYZ Department Store, you have been tasked with preparing the six$-$month Fall seasonal merchandise plan for your department. Your manager has given you last year's Fall plan as a starting point, and arranged a meeting to give you some advice on how to proceed. At that meeting you hear the following:

"Last Fall we missed our planned sales by about $3\mathrm{.}4\%,$ which isn't bad considering how inflation was spiking and impacting just about every business. All the indications we're seeing point to an economic rebound later this year, but we're also still concerned that inflation isn't slowing as fast as we'd thought. But we also need to consider that if consumers decreased their spending on apparel last year, there may be some pent up demand for new clothing, especially consumers replacing basic pieces. So we're forecasting a $4\%$ increase over last Fall's actual total sales. Start from there to find the new total sales number for Fall $23.$

Then plan monthly sales, but you'll need to adjust last Fall's monthly sales percentages slightly. We saw more demand during Back$-$To$-$School than we expected$--$school clothes are likely more inflation$-$proof than other types of apparel. This year use $9\%$ for August, $12\%$ for September, and $17\%,22\%,31\%,9\%$ for the remaining months.