Inventory Days Benchmark — Retail Apparel & Footwear
How many days of inventory does a typical Retail Apparel & Footwear business hold? This page tracks the listed companies in this segment — inventory days (DIO), the spread between the fastest and slowest quartile, and where Australian and American peers diverge, built from company filings, not survey responses.
Explore the full interactive tool, filter by segment, or enter your own numbers →Across 12 listed Retail Apparel & Footwear companies reporting in 2024, the median inventory position was 98.2 days of cost of goods sold sitting in stock. The fastest quarter of the panel held 80.9 days or fewer; the slowest quarter held 158.4 days or more.
By listing venue
Published separately because the two panels aren't measuring the same thing until a venue clears a minimum of four reporting peers — below that, a "median" is an anecdote, not a benchmark.
The named companies
Each row is that company's own latest reported fiscal year — not all companies report on the same calendar, so years vary by row.
| Company | Exchange | Latest FY | Inventory days | Trend | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KMD Brands KMD | ASX | 2024 (31 Jul 2024) | 252.4 days | ASX filing | |
| City Chic Collective CCX | ASX | 2023 (30 Jun 2024) | 206.2 days | ASX filing | |
| Levi Strauss LEVI | US | 2025 (30 Nov 2025) | 179.8 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Lovisa Holdings LOV | ASX | 2023 (30 Jun 2024) | 176.8 days | ASX filing | |
| Accent Group AX1 | ASX | 2024 (30 Jun 2025) | 159.1 days | ASX filing | |
| Columbia Sportswear COLM | US | 2025 (31 Dec 2025) | 149.9 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Premier Investments PMV | ASX | 2024 (31 Jul 2024) | 137.2 days | ASX filing | |
| Carter's CRI | US | 2019 (28 Dec 2019) | 106.0 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Abercrombie & Fitch ANF | US | 2025 (31 Jan 2026) | 105.8 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Universal Store UNI | ASX | 2024 (30 Jun 2025) | 89.0 days | ASX filing | |
| Gap Inc. GAP | US | 2025 (31 Jan 2026) | 85.7 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Crocs CROX | US | 2025 (31 Dec 2025) | 78.6 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Deckers Outdoor DECK | US | 2025 (31 Mar 2026) | 77.4 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| American Eagle Outfitters AEO | US | 2025 (31 Jan 2026) | 69.4 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) | |
| Urban Outfitters URBN | US | 2025 (31 Jan 2026) | 61.2 days | 10-K (SEC EDGAR) |
What this means
Apparel and footwear retailers buy a season ahead of selling it — spring/summer ranges are committed to and shipped in before the first unit sells — so inventory days here run structurally higher than grocery or specialty retail. The gap between the ASX and US panels is real and worth noting on its own terms: Australian apparel retailers (Premier Investments, Accent Group, Lovisa, Universal Store, KMD Brands, City Chic Collective) carry noticeably more stock than their US counterparts, consistent with longer supply lines from Asian manufacturing into a smaller, more geographically dispersed store network.
How this is calculated
Inventory days (DIO) is calculated as 365 × average inventory ÷ COGS, with the balance averaged against the prior year where one exists so a single year-end stock date can't distort the figure. US figures come from each company's own 10-K, pulled from the SEC's XBRL company-facts API. Australian figures come from each company's statutory accounts as rendered by Yahoo Finance, linking through to the company's ASX page — a weaker chain of custody than the US half, one step removed from the primary filing rather than pulled from it directly. Australian coverage runs three benchmark years (2022–2024) against eight for the US, because only a handful of fiscal years of ASX data are obtainable this way.
If your inventory days sit in the top quartile, that gap is cash.
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