A curve is a small set of numbers with a lot of money behind it. Order 1-2-2-1 on a style that sells mostly in L and XL and you finish the season with unsold S at 50% off while the size your customers wanted has been gone since week three.
The curve in practice
Write the curve in size order and the numbers are the units per size. On a six-unit pack across S, M, L, XL, a 1-2-2-1 curve means one S, two M, two L, one XL. Shops with a taller customer base run heavier at the top, for example 1-2-3-2 across the same range. Menswear tailoring on Italian sizing (46 to 58) spreads across seven sizes and the middle of the range, 50 and 52, usually carries the weight.
| Size | Conservative curve | Weighted to the top |
|---|---|---|
| S | 1 | 1 |
| M | 2 | 2 |
| L | 2 | 3 |
| XL | 1 | 2 |
| Total | 6 | 8 |
How suppliers ship curves
Many brands sell entry styles only as prepacks: one carton, one fixed curve, no substitutions. The order line says six units and the packing list details which sizes are inside. That keeps their production runs predictable and moves the sizing risk to you, which is why the received quantities have to be checked size by size rather than trusting the carton label.
Curves and reorders
The curve you bought is a forecast. What sells is data. Four weeks in, sell-through per size shows where the forecast was wrong: if L is at 80% and S at 20%, the reorder should be almost entirely L and XL, not another prepack. This only works if stock is tracked per variant, because a style-level stock number hides which sizes are actually gone.
How Agilo handles it
Agilo extracts every size and color variant from the supplier's documents, so a prepack arrives as individual variant rows with their own quantities, EANs and costs rather than a single line for six units. The Sell-In report then compares what you bought against what left the shelves at variant level, which is the view you need to decide whether next season's curve should move up or down the range.