The Post-Mortem Paradox: Identifying the Mistake vs. the Root Cause
Right now, across the industry, thousands of hours are being spent in post-peak trading reviews. We pore over the data to see what won and what lost during the Golden Quarter.
The paradox of these meetings is that while they are excellent at identifying what happened, they rarely identify the commercial root cause of why it happened.
We might conclude that "Knitwear underperformed in December." That is a statement of fact. It is not an insight.
A true commercial post-mortem digs deeper. Why did it underperform?
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Was the initial buy too aggressive for the market trends?
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Did the junior buyer lack the negotiation skills to secure a cost price that allowed for a competitive RRP?
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Was the "good, better, best" architecture flawed, leaving customers confused about value?
If we only identify the symptom ("knitwear failed"), we will likely repeat the mistake next year. We must have the courage to identify the capability gaps in our teams that led to the poor decision in the first place.
History repeats itself in retail when we fail to address the skills gap that caused the initial error.
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Posted by Martin Dugan
28th January 2026
