Retail & E-commerce / Merchandising
Open-to-Buy (OTB) OTB
How much more inventory a buyer can still receive in a period without breaking the plan, the merchandising budget's remaining headroom after what is already on hand and already on order.
The fork, why two teams get different numbers
Retail dollars versus cost dollars is the first fork, and it moves the number by the entire markup: classic OTB is planned in RETAIL value (the merchandise plan is a retail plan), while finance and many systems track it at COST.
In the Metric Library
- The full fork, both definitions worked all the way through
- The trap that makes the number lie, on a real export
- Every formula variant, spelled out
- The reconciliation anchor, what to tie it to and when to refuse
Reference: Retail merchandise financial planning (OTB) convention ยท NRF retail 4-5-4 calendar (reference)