Spring 2027

Retail Financial Analysis

Retail Financial Analysis covers planning and analyzing retail performance via financial statements, pricing, merchandise planning, and inventory control.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Murray Murray

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 2.81 GPA, 36.7% A/AB (n=158 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.23 GPA, 59.6% A/AB (n=178 letter grades); Spring 2026: 2.66 GPA, 31.7% A/AB (n=167 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Understand and define the different roles in merchandising, product development and manufacturing to produce products at the right time, right place, right price, right quantity, and right appeal for customers

  • Utilize the retail method of inventory to calculate book and physical inventory and explain the cause and effects of overages and shortages

  • Demonstrate the mathematical calculations and processes frequently used in the retail and manufacturing industry to evaluate inventory performance

  • Apply negotiation alternatives between retailers and manufactures

  • Define and calculate measurements of inventory mark-ups & profit indicators

  • Differentiate inventory pricing and markdowns strategies

  • Define and calculate measurements of inventory rate of sale

  • Define and calculate the components of a retailer’s merchandise financial plan and forecast based upon market influences

  • Apply methods for analyzing and correcting problems related to retail assortments, purchases, inventory and sales

  • Prepare, modify and evaluate merchandising planning methods used to create seasonal inventory budgets

  • Evaluate the causes and effects of retail pricing adjustments

  • Evaluate profit and loss statements of retailers and manufacturers and impact of performances

  • Synthesis speed and profit to create a merchandise plan and forecast along with a full financial plan based upon a set of provided data

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

CNSR SCI 257, (ACCT I S 100or300 or GEN BUS 310), and (GEN BUS 106 or A A E 335), or graduate/professional standing

CNSRSCI 564

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 2.81 GPA, 36.7% A/AB (n=158 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.23 GPA, 59.6% A/AB (n=178 letter grades); Spring 2026: 2.66 GPA, 31.7% A/AB (n=167 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

MURRAY MURRAY is recorded teaching in Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 600
LEC 002Online Only0 / 600
LEC 003Online Only0 / 600

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 2.81 GPA, 36.7% A/AB (n=158 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.23 GPA, 59.6% A/AB (n=178 letter grades); Spring 2026: 2.66 GPA, 31.7% A/AB (n=167 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Retail financial statements, pricing, purchasing terms, merchandise planning, inventory control, and economic factors.

Skills

  • Planning and analyzing retail financial performance using financial statements, pricing, and inventory control methods.
  • Performing mathematical calculations to evaluate inventory performance and mark-ups.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.24 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
CNSRSCI 564 · Spring 2027

Retail Financial Analysis

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:271:022241",
    "course_id": "CNSRSCI 564",
    "course_uid": "course_16d7150117c99c98c5c53c17",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "022241",
    "source_subject_id": "271",
    "title": "Retail Financial Analysis",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "f869f56175c2bb4e2d35119958000902608159ea5790a04dd44016776798c03a",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}