# Capital quadrants

Source: https://docs.tightly.io/help/product/capital-quadrants
Reviewed: 2026-09-07

## What it is

Capital quadrants sort every variant at every warehouse into one of four, a Winner, a Traffic Driver, a Sleeper or a Bleeder, by how fast it turns and how much margin it earns. A Winner turns fast at high margin. A Traffic Driver turns fast at low margin: the volume driver. A Sleeper turns slowly at high margin: a hidden gem, or stock held on purpose out of season. A Bleeder turns slowly at low margin and belongs in a buy only to be cleared. The grain is one variant at one warehouse and it is never rolled up: a style can be a Winner in one warehouse and a Sleeper in another, and a quadrant summed over a product would print a judgement nobody measured.

## How Tightly decides it

The tag engine classifies after every sync. Velocity is the variant's annual turnover at that warehouse: units sold over the last year against its average stock; margin is its gross margin as a percentage of net sales over the same year. Each is read against a threshold for your industry: the velocity target of that industry's benchmark, and that industry's margin threshold, from forty points for outdoor hardgoods to sixty-five for luxury goods. At or above both is a Winner; fast and thin is a Traffic Driver; slow and rich is a Sleeper; below both is a Bleeder. With no industry declared, nothing is classified at all. A variant with no margin reading or no turnover reading is left out rather than filed: an unmeasured item is never a Bleeder, and the absences travel as their own legs inside the total rather than vanishing from it.

Each industry also carries an ideal share of capital across the four quadrants, so a book can be read against the shape its industry expects. The shares are a reference, never a target Tightly hard-codes into a decision, and never a clause of a verdict.

## The words on the face

| Word | What it stands on | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Winner | high velocity and high margin | earns depth |
| Traffic Driver | high velocity and low margin | drives volume; watch the margin |
| Sleeper | low velocity and high margin | a test, or stock held on purpose |
| Bleeder | low velocity and low margin | clear it |
| Mixed | a style whose variants or warehouses fall in more than one quadrant | read the split on hover |
| Not measured | no margin or no turnover reading at this warehouse | nothing is claimed |

One spelling each, and singular: a row is one variant at one warehouse, never a crowd, and the set is the four quadrants. The same words print wherever a quadrant does. Never a colour against a colour: the word carries the state, and a Bleeder is a fact, not a declared promise at risk, so it carries no amber.

## What you can do about it

On Lite, Essentials and Essentials+ the words print on the Budget. Its Quadrants view is headed Where the money went: one row per quadrant with its Share of spend, the industry's share beside it under Segment, the word over or under at five points or more of drift, then Spend, Revenue, Margin and GMROI, with Not measured where nothing was. With no industry set the Segment column leaves the table and the hover reads No industry set, never a zero. The By month view bands its rows by the same four words. So a buy heavy in Bleeder lines is visible before it lands, and a book thin in Winner lines is visible before the season.

On Tightly Pro the words print on the desk. A commitment's assortment is broken down by quadrant at variant and warehouse grain, so the grid's Quadrant column prints Winner, Traffic Driver, Sleeper or Bleeder; Mixed where a style's variants or warehouses fall in more than one, with the split on hover; and Not measured where nothing was. The column leaves when every row prints the same word. There the quadrant is the conviction answer already measured: a Winner earns depth, a Sleeper is a test, a Bleeder is there only to be cleared.

Nothing here is pressed. The industry that sets the thresholds is the one you declared, and a quadrant changes through the facts under it: the price, the cost and the rate of sale at that warehouse.

## Glossary line

Capital quadrants sort every variant at every warehouse into one of four, a Winner, a Traffic Driver, a Sleeper or a Bleeder, by how fast it turns and how much margin it earns, never rolled up.