Timeline
The 2022 retail inventory glut, dated
The glut was an industry event, not a company one. Retailers ordered against 2021 shortages, demand shifted toward travel and away from goods, and the merchandise arrived into a market that no longer wanted it. This is the sequence, with the dates and the figures each company put on the record.
By The Retail Ledger · September 27, 2026
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Late 2021
Retailers order heavily to compensate for the 2021 shortages and long lead times. Orders are placed against demand that has not yet turned.
Source: Supply Chain Dive, 2022 year in review
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Q1 2022
Walmart ends the quarter holding about $61 billion of inventory and reports operating income down roughly $1.6 billion, citing the cost of excess stock. Target reports first-quarter operating income down 43 percent year over year.
Source: Modern Retail; company reports
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May 26, 2022
On its first-quarter earnings call Gap Inc. says it overestimated demand in stores and was overplanned in larger sizes.
Source: Gap Inc. Q1 2022 earnings call
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July 2022
Target moves first and hardest, taking markdowns and cancelling orders to reset inventory, and warns the reset will cost it profit in the near term.
Source: Retail Dive
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August 19, 2022
Target defends the markdown strategy after sluggish demand hits operating profit.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
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August 23, 2022
Kohl's describes an aggressive inventory cleanup through order cancellations and promotions.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
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August 30, 2022
Gap, Kohl’s and Nordstrom are all reported using deep discounts and pulling merchandise from shelves.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
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September 2022
The markdown wave reaches the off-price channel. Burlington and Ross face an unusual volume of goods being pushed toward them at once.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
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October 19, 2022
Levi Strauss cuts first-quarter orders by 25 percent to work down inventory.
Source: Supply Chain Dive
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Late 2022
Gap ends the October quarter still holding roughly $3.0 billion of merchandise inventory, near its peak.
Source: Gap Inc. quarterly report
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Quarter ended January 28, 2023
Gap’s inventory falls $654 million, about 21 percent, the largest single-quarter reduction in its recent series. Gross margin for the fiscal year comes in at 34.3 percent, down from 39.8 percent.
Source: Gap Inc. annual report
What the sequence shows
Three things stand out. The problem was recognized early, by May 2022 at the latest, and publicly. The responses were staged: cancel orders first, mark down second, move bulk into off-price last, because each step costs more than the one before. And the clearing concentrated in a single quarter, the one ending in January 2023, across the whole sector.
Measured against each retailer’s own seasonal pattern, that quarter was not equally extreme for everyone. The comparison is in who cleared the 2022 glut, and the channel that absorbed the volume is described in where unsold apparel goes.
Sources: company quarterly and annual reports; contemporaneous trade coverage by Supply Chain Dive, Modern Retail and Retail Dive. Figures attributed to companies are as they reported them.