17 February 2026 · Priya Nair
A dress that converts in 12 and 14 will still look like a failure if the buy is stacked in 8 and 18. Reports should show missing sizes beside conversion, not as a footnote.
A line can look like a conversion failure when it is a size failure. We have sat with knitwear where 12 and 14 accounted for most orders while the warehouse was full of 8 and 18. Site-wide conversion on “knits” looked modest. Listing-level conversion on the available popular sizes was healthy — there were simply not enough of them.
Charts that hide size do merchandisers a disservice. If your export carries size, the briefing should too. If it does not, say so, because a markdown on the whole line will punish the sizes that were already converting.
Buyers sometimes resist a size-level chase because it feels inelegant next to a colour story. Conversion does not care. Parents buying school shoes and customers buying merino both abandon a listing when their size is missing, even if the colourway is beautiful in the first photograph.