# Phase plan — Ecommerce

The phase plan with the limits a store needs: authority bounded by catalogue segment rather than by campaign, a margin floor no change may cross, stock cover checked before weight is added, and promotion weeks held outside ordinary permissions.

Everything else is the general phase plan, unchanged. One row per area per phase, an explicit approval list, a reversal rule and a record of every change.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. Write one row per area per phase, and never a single blanket permission.
3. Write what still needs approval explicitly, rather than leaving it as everything else.
4. Put a limit on every permission: how much, how often, on what.
5. Decide the evidence to advance before the phase starts, not when somebody asks.
6. Write the reversal rule while everything is going well.
7. Record every change made under the authority, with its reason and its time.

## The columns

**Phase** (Text). The step of delegated authority this row sets out. In a trading account the phases move faster than in most, because the person closest to the account has to keep pace with a range that changes weekly.

**Area** (Text). What kind of change this governs: budget, bidding, creative rotation, audiences, structure. Creative rotation usually reaches a wide phase first here, because a store's assets fatigue faster than an approval cycle.

**May change without separate approval** (Text). Exactly what can be altered at this phase, written narrowly and in the store's own terms: move budget between campaigns inside one catalogue segment, rotate among assets already in the approved library.

**Limits** (Text). How much, how often and on what, with the boundary that matters here being the segment rather than the amount. Within a segment is tactical; between segments changes which part of the range the quarter is about.

**Approval required for** (Text). What still needs a person: any move between catalogue segments, anything during a promotion week, any increase into a segment whose margin has not been calculated.

**Who holds it** (Text). Who or what holds this permission. Where it is a rule, it has been tested against the last two peaks, because rules calibrated on ordinary weeks behave badly in the weeks that matter.

**Evidence to enter** (Text). What had to be true before this phase started: four weeks of reporting reconciled against the store's own revenue figures, with no unexplained differences.

**Evidence to advance** (Text). What has to be true before the next phase begins, written now. In a store that is usually a count of promotions survived rather than a number of weeks, because the weeks differ so much.

**Review cadence** (Text). How often this row is re-read. Weekly during a season, because stock and offers move weekly, and a permission that made sense before a sell-out may not after one.

**Reversal rule** (Text). What causes authority to narrow again: a change made during a promotion week, or weight added to a segment with no recorded margin or unchecked stock cover.

**Record kept** (Text). What is written down whenever this authority is used: the segment, what moved, from where, to where, why, and the stock cover the decision was based on.

**Entered on** (Date (YYYY-MM-DD)). When this area entered this phase. Creative rotation and budget authority advance at different speeds in a store, so each row carries its own date.

**Notes** (Text). What the next person needs: the peak where a limit turned out to be too loose, the segment nobody has been comfortable widening, the rule that behaved badly in November.

## The phase plan

| Phase | Area | May change without separate approval | Limits | Approval required for | Who holds it | Evidence to enter | Evidence to advance | Review cadence | Reversal rule | Record kept | Entered on | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- There is one row per area per phase, and no blanket permission.
- Budget authority is bounded by catalogue segment, not only by amount.
- No permission allows weight to be added to a segment with unknown margin.
- Stock cover is a condition on any increase.
- Promotion weeks sit outside ordinary permissions.
- Every row has a reversal rule written while things were going well.
- Every change made under the authority is recorded with its reason.