# A minimum viable range: cutting SKUs without losing revenue

> A private-equity-backed UK pet superstore chain · Retail & Consumer

A private-equity-backed UK pet superstore chain carried a dog food range that had ballooned to around 1,930 SKUs, yet most of its sales came from a few hundred. QuantSpark’s fixed-fee, 10-week range review cut core SKUs by 46% while retaining 95% of revenue.

## At a glance

- **46%** reduction in core SKUs while retaining 95% of revenue
- Engagement: 10 weeks

## What was the problem?

The client's dog food range had grown to around 1,930 unique SKUs stocked across 52 weeks, yet 80% of sales came from fewer than 300 of them. The long tail added operational cost while giving customers minimal incremental choice. Many high-selling SKUs carried below-average margin, and pricing and promotion decisions were not data-led, eroding margin further.

## What did QuantSpark do?

QuantSpark delivered a fixed-fee, 10-week range review in three stages: exploratory data analysis, substitutability analysis, and a minimum viable range recommendation. An optimisation algorithm incrementally built a range for small, medium and large stores, optimising first for revenue and then refining for profit and business logic. It was underpinned by a customer choice model estimating how demand transfers between similar products when a SKU is delisted. The method was designed to be repeatable and extensible to other categories.

## What changed?

Delivered outcomes: the optimised range cut core SKUs by 46% (from 835 in-scope SKUs to about 454 core) while retaining 95% of revenue, and was projected to add £58k in weekly margin plus £146k in conserved or transferred revenue. The analysis showed that 95% of revenue came from 55% of SKUs, and that loyalty customers switch to an alternative around 48% of the time when a preferred product is unavailable, with food type, lifecycle and brand the most important switching attributes.

Modelled, indicative estimates (proposal stage, not delivered): an earlier proposal modelled a margin-uplift opportunity of around £830k per year, and internal collateral cited a gross-profit opportunity of around £3m per year. These are distinct from the delivered figures above and should be treated as indicative only.

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Canonical page: https://quantspark.ai/case-studies/range-rationalisation-pet-retail
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