Quick answer: Order enough stock to hit an 85–90% sell-through rate during BFCM, not "enough to never run out." If you expect to sell 2,000 units, order around 2,200, not 3,000 "to be safe." Overstock costs more than a stockout ever will: it eats storage fees, forces markdowns, and quietly kills your Q4 margin.
Two weeks ago we talked about when to order. Last week, how not to trap your cash in the process. This week is the number sitting in the middle of both: how much to actually buy.
What Is a BFCM Sell-Through Target?
Sell-through target is the share of your BFCM order you plan to actually sell during the campaign. It's the one number that should drive every other inventory decision this week, not "never run out," not "make sure we have enough," but sell almost everything you order, and decide up front exactly how much "almost everything" is.
For most DTC brands, a healthy BFCM sell-through target is 85–90%. You plan to sell 85–90% of what you order during peak hours, and you treat the remaining 10–15% as normal, manageable leftovers, not a warehouse full of regret.
The Mistake Nobody Brags About
Everyone's scared of the stockout. Selling out in 48 hours makes a great screenshot. Running dry mid-campaign feels like failure. So founders over-order to make sure it never happens to them, and in a year when one delayed shipment can cost weeks, the urge to pad the order runs even hotter.
Here's what that fear actually costs.
A few years ago I worked with a brand that crushed Black Friday on paper. Ads humming, influencers posting, cart sizes climbing, all the traffic they'd hoped for. Then December came, and their warehouse looked like a graveyard of what-could-have-been.
$46,000 in unsold stock
An extra $3,500/month in 3PL fees just to store it
A 19% drop in gross margin for Q4, because everything that didn't sell at full price eventually went out at a discount, if it moved at all
Nobody posts about that. It's not as fun as a "sold out" headline. But if you're building for the long game, it's the quieter and far more expensive mistake.
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How to Calculate Your BFCM Order Quantity
The formula:
Order Quantity = Expected Sales ÷ Sell-Through Target
Expected Sales | Sell-Through Target | Order Quantity |
2,000 units | 90% | ~2,222 units |
2,000 units | 85% | ~2,353 units |
Start from what you honestly expect to sell, then size the order so that number lands at your target. Not 3,000 units "to be safe": that extra padding "just in case" is exactly how the brand above ended up with $46,000 of dead stock.
Why Overstock Costs More Than a Stockout
Scenario | Units | Cash Impact |
Order size | 3,000 units @ $10 landed | $30,000 spent |
Sold during BFCM | 2,100 units | Genuinely great weekend |
Leftover | 900 units | ~$9,000 sitting on a shelf |
Storage (90 days, ~$1/unit/month) | n/a | +$2,000 in holding costs |
Then: markdown to clear it | n/a | Margin drop, quiet Q1 loss |
A stockout costs you a sale you might have made. Overstock costs you the sale, the storage, the markdown, and the cash you can't reinvest. It isn't close. Your sell-through target is simply the guardrail that keeps you on the right side of it.
Two Things That Turn Your Target Into a Real Number
Build it off marketing, not an ops hunch. Most BFCM forecasts get made in one room while marketing plans a completely different campaign in another, and the two collide on launch day. Your expected-sales number should come from the actual plan: real ad spend, historical ROAS, conversion rates, traffic projections. The people spending the money should be in the room where you decide how much to buy.
Plan for the last 10–15% before the campaign, not after. BFCM doesn't end on Cyber Monday, it ends when the stock is gone. Decide now what happens to whatever doesn't sell through: bundles, restock alerts, a quiet January reset that clears leftovers at a margin you can live with instead of a fire sale you can't.
FAQ
What's a good sell-through rate for Black Friday? Most DTC brands should target 85–90% sell-through during BFCM, selling that share of what they ordered, and treating the rest as manageable leftover rather than dead stock.
How much extra inventory should I order for BFCM? Size your order to your sell-through target, not to a "just in case" buffer. If you expect to sell 2,000 units at a 90% target, order about 2,200, not 3,000.
Is it worse to run out of stock or to overstock for Black Friday? Overstock is worse. A stockout costs you a missed sale. Overstock costs the sale, the storage fees, the eventual markdown, and the cash you can't redeploy elsewhere.
Who should set the BFCM sales forecast: marketing or ops? Both, together. The forecast should be built from marketing's actual plan (ad spend, ROAS, conversion rate, traffic projections), not an ops-only estimate made in isolation.
Key Takeaway
Set your sell-through target (85–90% for most DTC brands), size your order to it using Expected Sales ÷ Target, and decide before the campaign (not after) what happens to the leftover 10–15%. A full warehouse in December isn't the win it feels like in July. Turning almost all of it into cash by January is.
Getting demand, buffers, and sell-through sized to reality instead of fear is exactly the kind of thing MSC LENS (the planning side of what we do) is built for.
Next week is the final leg: getting all of it from the factory to your customer's door without a holiday fulfillment meltdown.
New to Unboxed Weekly? This is one piece of a series on getting BFCM-ready without the chaos.
Until next time,
— Lara
P.S. The brand with the $46,000 graveyard did everything right on the marketing side. That's the part that stuck with me. You can nail the campaign and still lose the quarter in the warehouse, and almost nobody warns you about that one.
Lara Guevara
Founder, Move Supply Chain
Lara has spent 17 years in supply chain, from enterprise operations to building and scaling DTC brands' supply chains from the ground up. She's advised 100+ DTC brands on sourcing, inventory, and fulfillment, and founded Move Supply Chain to give growing brands access to the same senior-level supply chain thinking enterprise teams take for granted.
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