Markdown
by
Markdown decisions for ecommerce teams: size the discount against the margin it spends and the cash it frees, then hand Paid, Lifecycle, Site and Creative the same change at the same time.
Markdowns get set by feel and by round numbers. Twenty percent because twenty percent is what was done last season, on a SKU whose real problem is eight weeks of cover rather than its price. The margin given up is permanent, the cash freed is guessed at, and four teams learn about the change on four different days. This skill reads stock cover, sell-through and contribution margin per SKU against your cash position, prices each discount step and the bundle alternative, recommends a percentage or a bundle or a hold, and writes the downstream flags so Paid, Lifecycle, Site and Creative all move together.
What It Does
- Reads stock cover, sell-through rate and stock age per SKU.
- Computes contribution margin at every candidate discount step.
- Compares a straight markdown against a bundle that protects unit margin.
- Sizes the cash a markdown frees against the margin it gives up permanently.
- Recommends a discount percentage, a bundle play, or a hold.
- Flags the change for Paid, Lifecycle, Site and Creative so it lands everywhere at once.
Use Cases
- Clear end-of-season stock without discounting deeper than the cash need requires.
- Decide between a percentage off and a bundle on the same slow SKU.
- Stop discounting a SKU that is on track to sell through at full price.
- Give four teams one instruction instead of four versions of the same promo.
Example Session
We have 900 units of the linen shirt left and eight weeks of season. What discount, if any?
At the current rate you finish the season with roughly 340 units unsold. Here is what each step costs.
- Step | Price | Unit margin | Weeks to clear | Margin given up
- Hold | $79 | $34 | 14 | $0
- Minus 15% | $67 | $22 | 9 | $10,800
- Minus 25% | $59 | $14 | 6 | $18,000
- Bundle with tee | $79 | $27 | 7 | $6,300
The bundle clears inside the season and gives up a third of what a 25% markdown costs, because the tee absorbs the discount at a better unit margin. Take the bundle, hold the shirt at $79, and revisit in three weeks: if cover is still above ten weeks then, step to 15% rather than jumping to 25%.
Why This Beats Prompting It Yourself
A Round Number vs A Priced Decision: The Hidden Risk
A generic prompt will happily suggest a discount. Ask how much to mark something down and you get a percentage that sounds reasonable, with no unit margin behind it, no view of how many weeks of cover you are actually trying to remove, and no comparison against the bundle that would cost you a third as much. The number arrives without the arithmetic, and a markdown is the one decision you cannot take back.
When You Still Need The Cash Side Of It
A markdown trades permanent margin for temporary cash, so both halves have to be on the table. This skill states $34 of unit margin at full price, $14 at minus 25%, six weeks to clear either way, and the bundle at $6,300 against the markdown's $18,000. Every figure carries the cost assumptions it came from, which is what lets a merchandiser and a finance lead agree in one meeting instead of three.
Known Limitations
It needs landed product cost per SKU to price margin at each step, and without it the output falls back to gross margin and labels the gap. Bundle recommendations assume the attach product has stock and enough margin to absorb the discount, which the skill checks but cannot fix. It does not know your brand's discount policy, so a recommendation that breaches a floor you never told it about will come back and need one correction.
Install It
- Download the ZIP.
It is free and there is no account to create. - Unzip it into your agent's skills folder.
Claude Code reads ~/.claude/skills/, which is hidden by default: the command in the folder block opens it. Other agents scan their own directory, so drop the same folder there instead. - Ask your agent to use it.
Restart the agent if it was already running, then it picks the skill up with no config.
skills folder
Copy
~/.claude/skills/markdown/
SKILL.md
references/margin-model.md
plans/
# one markdown plan per run
# macOS: create the folder and open it in Finder
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && open ~/.claude/skills
# Windows: paste in the Explorer address bar
%USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\Frequently asked questions
How is this different from asking for a discount recommendation?
A recommendation on its own is a number. This prices every step against unit margin, weeks of cover and the cash each step frees, then compares the markdown to the bundle that usually costs less. The answer ends on a decision, and each figure traces back to the cost assumption behind it.
Which agents does the skill run in?
Any agent that supports the open SKILL.md format: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Manus, Grok and others load it unmodified. The format is portable, the location is not. Each agent scans its own skills directory, so you drop the same folder into whichever one yours uses. There is no config file to edit and no API key to provision.
What data does it need per SKU?
Landed product cost, current price, units on hand and recent sell-through. With those it prices every step properly. Without landed cost it still runs on gross margin, and it labels the output so the number is never mistaken for contribution margin.
Why does it keep suggesting bundles instead of discounts?
Because a bundle often clears the same units while giving up less margin, and the arithmetic says so more often than merchandisers expect. It recommends a straight markdown whenever the attach product lacks stock or margin, and it shows both options side by side either way.
Can it act on the store directly?
No, and that is deliberate. It produces the plan and the downstream flags for Paid, Lifecycle, Site and Creative. A human applies the price change. A markdown is not reversible, so nothing here is designed to be applied without someone approving it first.
What is included with the skill?
The skill itself, the margin model reference, the markdown plan template, and the downstream flag format for the four teams. It is free and security scanned. We re-publish the ZIP when the margin model changes, so download it again if the numbers stop reconciling.
A markdown is permanent margin traded for temporary cash.
Polar puts stock cover, contribution margin and cash position on one definition, so the discount you approve is sized against what it frees.
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