THE FIRST THIRTY DAYS

Whether you’re fixing this after a painful stockout or before a planned retirement, the order of work is the same. Find out what’s changing and who it touches. Put numbers on it. Fix the customer-facing moments. Then write down how the next change will be handled, so it doesn’t depend on who remembers.

1. Week one: the listsCollect every catalog change planned for the next 90 days: known stockouts, retirements, formula or supplier changes and cuts (the map). Build the dependents segment and run it for each (chapter 7). Score the audit in chapter 1.
2. Week two: the numbersAdd repeat share to the stock report and sort by repeat orders (chapter 3). Run the stockout tool for the top three. Measure your last big stockout against a comparison group (chapter 2). Split next quarter’s forecast for the top products into layers (chapter 5).
3. Week three: the flowsBack-in-stock signup and flow on every product page, sending to past buyers first. Named alternatives on sold-out pages. A late-order notice that meets the FTC rule, and a subscription setting that skips or asks rather than swapping (chapter 4). Templates are in Appendix B.
4. Week four: the playbooks and the scorecardPut the next retirement or reformulation on the 90-day calendar (chapter 8, chapter 9). Label the bottom of the range by role and score the anchors before any cut (chapter 12). Hold the first scorecard review (chapter 13).

At day thirty you won’t know yet whether the playbook kept the dependents; that takes 90 days after the next change. What you’ll have is a catalog whose changes are seen in advance, costed in customers, and handled in the inbox before they’re found on the product page.

See the change coming, count the customers, tell them first.

Do this

• Put the four weeks on the calendar today, with one owner from operations and one from retention on every line. If that’s the same person, give them this guide.