The Next Level
- In-depth online courses
- Blueprints & Frameworks
- Real-life case studies
- Practice exercises with simulated store data
- Ready-to-use professional templates
A comprehensive program, with all the resources to get you started
A comprehensive program, that covers the different aspects of retail management, supported by all the resources that will get you started right away.
You’ve probably already gone through the basic contents and definitions of all concepts on our website. If not, we recommend you start with them from here. Then, when you’re ready, join the academy to start the next level of your learning journey.
In the members area and The Professional Retail Academy (PRA)™, you will learn how to put this knowledge into action, and how all the different metrics and concepts are linked together to create the bigger picture of running a retail business.
It’s specifically designed for retail owners who want to take their businesses to the next level, and retail professionals who want to develop into senior roles and manage retail businesses end-to-end.
You can choose to enroll as an individual, or if you are a business owner or employer, you can enroll your team through one of our business plans.
Some of the topics you will learn inside
- How to create a budget for your business (Sales, P&L and cash flow plans)
- How to create a buying plan (Open to Buy) and connect it to your cash flow plan
- How to analyze a P&L statement and take actions based on your analysis
- The different sales and inventory reports and how to interpret them
- How to price a product portfolio and extract the most value out of it
- How to manage the operations of a retail store through your team
- How to calculate the retail metrics and how to use them in managing the business
- Why and how consumers shop and how to use this knowledge for your business
- How to build, position and manage a brand
- The different strategic options available for your business at different stages
- The different ways to grow and expand a retail organization
- How to manage the inventory of the business, to get the most return on it
- How to plan and manage markdowns to optimize inventory returns
- Alternative business models & ideas to incorporate into your business
- The different tactics available for you to grow gross margins
- Negative cash flow situations and how to manage your business out of them
- How to manage and grow sales through your team
- How to lead & motivate your retail team
- How to analyze the performance of a retail business
170+ video lessons
Step-by-step frameworks, blueprints and guides
Online tools and calculators
Real-life case studies from real retail businesses
Ready-to-use professional templates
Library of how to articles, Q&As, and ideas
Go at your own pace
Start and stop anytime you want, and pick up where you left off.
THE PROFESSIONAL RETAIL ACADEMY (PRA)™
An online business academy, tailored for retailers
We know that starting and managing retail businesses is not only about learning retail math and other industry-specific topics, so we designed the academy curriculum accordingly.
Besides the retail-specific topics, our curriculum also covers generic business topics, such as marketing, branding, consumer behavior, economics and strategy. This knowledge is then built on while teaching the retail-specific courses.
For example, we connect economics, consumer behavior and branding to pricing retail products. We connect strategy with managing retail growth & expansion. We connect marketing with building the right product assortment.. and so on.
Understanding business is essential for running retail organizations end-to-end. So our goal from this program is to show you the bigger picture of the different aspects involved in running a retail business.
Such a combination of knowledge and skills will help you in making better business decisions.
Real-world knowledge & skills
Learn from real-life business cases and scenarios, and see what worked and what actually flopped and why. (Spoiler: The above example flopped)
See the best practices from across the industry and learn from large-cap corporate retailers, as well as successful small businesses.
What's Inside The Academy?
Here's a list of the included courses
In this introductory course we explain the fundamentals of the industry, its business model and keys to success.
This course teaches the different formulas for the different retail metrics and the connections between those metrics.
Learn the fundamentals of macroeconomics and microeconomics and how to use this knowledge while running a retail business.
Learn the foundations of marketing and why it is important while building a retail brand and assembling a product assortment that appeals to your target segment.
In this course we show the step-by-step process of creating realistic budget that is adjusted to seasonality. Learners then practice on creating their own budget
This course details the process of managing retail stores and the different areas of responsibilities and how to assess the performance of each area.
Understand how consumers shop and why, and learn how to use this knowledge to meet them at different stages in their buying journey.
This course explains how brands are built and positioned in consumers’ minds. Learn the best practices, as well as the wrong ones that didn’t work.
In this course, you’ll learn the different strategies available for each company, based on a systematic strategic analysis process.
This course builds on the strategic management course, and goes deeper into the different growth strategies and alternative ways to grow a retail business.
This course teaches a better approach to pricing retail products, to get the most out of the total portfolio. It challenges the traditional way of pricing based on cost alone.
In this course, you will learn the key tasks of a merchandiser, and the different reports and tools to use to manage inventory efficiently, in order to get the best return out of it.
This course teaches the process of managing sales, and how to read and analyze sales reports and take actions based on them.
Learn what drives people’s performance and how to motivate them to achieve business goals.
This course builds on all the previous courses and shows how to analyze the performance of a retail business and where to find the opportunities in different functions, based on this analysis.
Certificates of Completion
Receive a digital certificate of completion for each course you complete, and share it on your Linkedin profile and your resume.
Once you complete a learning path, you can apply to take the path exam and get a path completion certificate. We will manually grade your exam and verify your coursework, and then issue your digital certificate.
In addition to courses, you will also get access to the supportive content library, online tools and template downloads, which are all detailed below.
The Content Library
The knowledge you actually need
Only the practical, straight to the point, fluff-free content. Step-by-step, and ready to be put into action.
What is inside in the content library?
01
BLUEPRINTS
Learn the right way to set a sales & margin budget that will be the base for your entire P&L and buying plans.
Learn how to create a collective pricing strategy for your entire portfolio that employs different pricing strategies for different categories, in order to deliver your target profit goals at the end.
Learn how to improve gross margins through actionable steps that you can implement from tomorrow. This blueprint is based on a real-life case study for a business we have managed and improved its gross margins by 8 points.
02
FRAMEWORKS
Learn how to connect the dots and create a full budget, from sales to OTB, P&L and cash flow, and download all the needed templates that get you started on the spot.
Learn how to read and analyze a P&L statement, and how to act on each section to improve final profitability.
Learn how to analyze the performance of your inventory by product/category and how to improve the returns on your future inventory investments.
The step-by-step process of merchandise planning for upcoming seasons. Learn exactly which reports to generate, what metrics to calculate, and how to use this information to create a new plan for the season.
Learn how to plan your markdowns before the year, to align with your targeted margins.
03
READS
Peek into different real-life case studies with real retail problems and how they have been solved by professional retailers.
Topics Include:
- Inventory Issues
- Negative Cash Flow Situations
- Product Mix Problems
- Buying Budget Constraints
Read our member exclusive articles, where we answer specific questions and give ideas for alternative business models and best practices.
04
HANDS-ON PROJECTS
Create a full retail budget that includes sales , OTB, P&L & cash flow plans. Download all the needed templates and practice on demo data that we provide.
Analyze the P&L of a retail store and identify specific reasons for low performance, just by reading the income statement.
Create an Open to Buy plan for a retail store, using excel sheet method and online tool method. Download the needed template and sample data to practice on. We show you exactly how to use this data for both methods to get the same result.
You can use the same data sheet to prepare your own store data for future OTB planning.
Learn by doing and get job-ready
Practice what you’ve learned though hands-on projects and exercises in the library, as well as in the courses.
We also give you a set of online tools and professional templates that will let you get to work right away.
Online Tools
Avoid costly over-stock or under-stock situations by setting the right buying budget that’s based on your sales plan.
Use our step-by-step online OTB tool to calculate your future purchases. We guide you through the entire process and show you where to get the needed data from. You will also be able to download an excel template to prepare your data.
The tool includes 6 departments/categories and calculates the budget by period (e.g 6 months).
Price right and set the correct intake margins by linking your pricing to your markdown plans, to deliver your end margin goals.
Our step-by-step markdown planning tool will calculate your final realized margin, based on your chosen intake margin and the level and frequency of discounting you have planned in your budget.
Make better future buying decisions by measuring the productivity of your products and calculate inventory metrics that will show you the ROI on every inventory investment you make.
Compare different departments, categories or even SKUs based on those metrics, and make buying decisions based on your analysis.
The tool calculates inventory turns, GMROI and DSI, as well as sales contribution for each category/department
Are we going to make money at the end?
This tool helps you answer this question, by calculating your profits, based on your revenue estimates and expenses.
Project your profits and cash in advance and set your budget accordingly. Find out how much revenue you will need to breakeven, and whether you will have a positive or negative cash situation at the end of the period.
Ready-to-Use Templates
Use this Open to Buy excel sheet to track monthly intakes and calculate your required purchases. Combine it with our cash flow template to project payment to suppliers. (We explain in details how to do this)
Use this template to budget any number of product departments & categories, by creating any number of tabs as you require.
Besides using this template as a budgeting tool, when you keep this template updated every month with actual sales data as the months roll in, you will always have an overview on:
- The current inventory level
- The forward cover of this inventory
- Whether you need to start clearing some inventory to open up purchasing budget for coming seasons
This template is a very powerful tool to monitor and manage inventory levels.
Set & track your P&L budget, using this multi-store P&L template, and calculate your current SPD and your breakeven SPD by store.
See the results by store, as well as for the total business (up to 8 stores included, and can be expanded from your side)
Differentiate between store-level profit and total net profit, to make better decisions about stores openings/closures.
Plan and track your cash flow on a monthly basis for the entire year in advance, and connect it to your open to buy plan to project payments to suppliers.
See how each month will end, based on your sales and buying plans and plan for any negative cash situations in advance. Combine it with our frameworks and case studies for ideas on how to solve such problems and how to connect all the dots of sales, buying and cash flow together.
Use the pricing excel template to price an entire order at once, while making sure you are getting the targeted margin for the respective product category. We explain exactly how to use it in our Pricing Blueprint.
One excel workbook with ready-to-use, printable, daily checklists, logs and registers, used to manage a retail store from opening to closing.
Opening checklist, key handover, safe content, IOU, banking, receiving,..& more.
Use our printable 80-page retail business planner, that allows you to stay organized throughout the year, and track weekly and monthly performance.
ALL-IN-ONE MEMBERSHIP
MULTIPLE RESOURCES
- Courses
- Exercises
- Blueprints
- Online Tools
- Case Studies
- Templates
Learn how to...
see the big picture of running a business and make better decisions
start pricing correctly and don't leave money on the table
buy the right amount of inventory & save on storage
expand your business and take it to the next level
operate a retail business & manage retail teams
analyze business performance & take actions
I have taught Retail Math class for more than 10 years. I have read your contents on www.retaildogma.com and am so impressed.
Dr. Soo Hyun Kim, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Practice in Retailing and Consumer Science
Our Current Members
WHAT THEY DO
- Shop Owners
- Retail Executives
- Buyers
- Merchandisers
- Retail Operators
- Retail Consultants
WHERE THEY COME FROM
We're proud to have empowered retail owners & professionals from around the world
JOIN US
All-in-One Membership
$299
1-year access
- Courses
- Certificates
- Learning Path Exams
- Blueprints
- Frameworks
- Articles
- Case Studies
- Template Downloads
- Online Tools
- Hands-On Projects
- Email Support
Secure online payment through Stripe
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
No, it won’t.
You will receive an email before your subscription ends and you can manually opt for renewal, by purchasing the package again.
We accept all major credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express,..etc). If you have Apple Pay or Google Pay set up on your browser, you will also be able to use it.
Business plans can be paid by Credit/Debit cards or Bank Transfer/ ACH, depending on the number of seats purchased. Get in touch from here for more info.
No, there aren’t.
You will only pay the quoted amount once and if you want to extend or renew your subscription you can do this manually by placing a new order.
Each account is for one member only. If you have a team that is more than 2 members, please check out our business plans for team pricing.
Because of the nature of our digital products and materials, all sales are final. We will not be able to issue refunds.
We encourage you to browse all the free content that we have here on our website, and if you are happy with it, you can expect the same quality from the content in the members area.
Once your payment has been confirmed, you will receive an order confirmation with links to access the members area and your courses. Please allow for a few minutes for the system to finish enrolling you in all the courses included in your plan.
If you purchase a business plan, please allow for 1 to 3 business days after payment confirmation to setup your team accounts and groups.
To access your courses, go to “My Courses” page through the link in the footer or in members area. You can also browse to the courses page and click on the specific course you want to start.
When you first sign up, it might take a few minutes for the system to enroll you in all courses. Simply refresh the page after a few minutes and you will find all your courses.
No, they don’t.
Our courses are non-credit courses, i.e they will not give credit that can be used to earn an academic degree.
The goal of The Professional Retail Academy (PRA) ™ is to bridge the gap between what is taught at business schools, and the practical knowledge that is actually applied on a day-to-day basis in retail businesses.