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The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for retail buyers

Planning ranges, checking weekly sales and following up with suppliers are familiar Excel jobs for retail buyers and assistant buyers. This guide draws on The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: arithmetic for margin and mark-up, sales formulas and PivotTables by line and store, charts for range reviews, lookups for supplier quote comparisons and TaskFlow for a critical path. The sales order examples resemble the data buyers work with.

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Taught by Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

What you will be able to do

At work, you will be able to:

  • Calculate each line's margin and mark-up using cost and selling value. Use an absolute reference to a target margin cell, with IFERROR handling lines whose figures are still missing.
  • Use thresholds you choose to assign keep, reorder or drop labels with IFS, alongside SUMIFS totals for sales by category, supplier and store.
  • Build a sales ranking with SORTBY and a list of lines below target margin with FILTER. Use a Pareto chart to show the leading sellers' contribution to total sales.
  • Analyse sales by line, store and period through a PivotTable. Group dates, select stores with slicers and refresh the results as the next week's data comes in.
  • Compare supplier quotes alongside one another using XLOOKUP or INDEX and MATCH, and extract product code components with LEFT and MID.
  • Track samples, orders and deliveries along a critical path, using a Gantt-style timeline, status drop-downs and colour to identify overdue items.

Projects

What you will build.

The course has 14 projects. These four matter most here.

  • Excel PivotTables and a PivotChart of sales data (SalesPlusPerformance): net sales by product category as a column chart, with State, Region and City filters.

    Project 05

    SalesPlusPerformance

    A sales question answered in seconds, straight from the order data.

    Explore line, store and monthly sales from a single order table. Store slicers change the view, while Refresh All updates it when the following file arrives.

  • Nine Excel chart types from the Marketing Engagement Dashboard: combo, bar, funnel, Pareto, waterfall, histogram, box and whisker, sunburst and treemap.

    Project 04

    Marketing Engagement Dashboard

    Nine charts, each picked for the question it answers.

    Bring a range review into view with a sales and margin combo chart, a Pareto of leading sellers and row-level sparklines showing the trend for each line.

  • Task tracker in Excel (TaskFlow): start and due dates, status, priority and a progress bar for each task, with working days left, days past due and unfinished high-priority tasks highlighted.

    Project 07

    TaskFlow

    One sheet that shows what is done, what is late and what is urgent.

    Lay out sample approvals, orders and deliveries as milestones in a range's critical path. Give each row a status and deadline, with colour highlighting missed deadlines.

  • Project 03

    Sales Goal Tracker

    Assess which lines justify their place with IFS labels, supported by SUMIFS sales totals for categories and suppliers and COUNTIFS counts of lines within categories.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 57 of them, 4 h 33 min of video. Each lesson keeps its number in the course.

Where to start

Lesson 8 Basic maths in Excel

If entering data is familiar but writing formulas is new, start with Lesson 8: its basic arithmetic underpins margin and mark-up. For a first introduction to Excel, use Lesson 1. Buyers comfortable with SUMIFS and IF can move to range review charts at Lesson 48 or begin PivotTables at Lesson 57.

57 of 186 lessons · 4 h 33 min

01 Microsoft Excel fundamentals: building a foundation from scratch 5 of 13 lessons · 19 min Apply the personal budget lessons to a line list: addition, multiplication and division provide the arithmetic for margin and mark-up. Percentages, an absolute reference to a single target cell and fixes for errors caused by lines without sales complete the groundwork.
  1. 8 Start here Basic maths in Excel Add, subtract, multiply and divide with formulas 3 min
  2. 9 SUM and AutoSum in Excel Total income, expenses and savings with MAX 6 min
  3. 10 Relative vs absolute references in Excel Dollar signs and mixed references 3 min
  4. 11 Calculating percentages in Excel Each expense as a percentage of income 2 min
  5. 12 Common Excel errors and how to fix them DIV0, NAME, VALUE errors and IFERROR 4 min
04 Essential formulas and functions (IF, SUMIF and more) 13 lessons · 1 h 17 min Summarise category, supplier and store sales with SUMIF and SUMIFS, and count the lines in a category with COUNTIFS. IF, nested IF and IFS turn selling performance into labels; AND and OR handle checks involving a line failing two tests. Date arithmetic supports delivery calculations.
  1. 28 Logical functions in Excel TRUE and FALSE comparisons for beginners 5 min
  2. 29 The IF function in Excel Pass or fail results with a single condition 3 min
  3. 30 IF function practice in Excel Categorise sales data with IF formulas 6 min
  4. 31 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Customer value tiers with nested IF 6 min
  5. 32 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Sales performance labels with the IFS function 5 min
  6. 33 AND and OR with IF in Excel Flag high-value deals with multiple conditions 8 min
  7. 34 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel SUM with FILTER and counting numbers with COUNT 7 min
  8. 35 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel COUNTA, unique counts and completeness checks 4 min
  9. 36 SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel Conditional sum and count with one criterion 8 min
  10. 37 SUMIFS and COUNTIFS in Excel Sum and count with multiple criteria 7 min
  11. 38 The Excel function library Insert Function dialog and Formula AutoComplete 5 min
  12. 39 Date and time functions in Excel TODAY, NOW, MONTH and date arithmetic 6 min
  13. 40 Excel Ninja Challenge COUNTIF, SUMIF, IF, COUNTIFS, SUMIFS and IFS practice 8 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 9 lessons · 45 min Prepare visual evidence for a range review: compare sales with margin in a combo chart and show category sales in a treemap. Column and line charts reveal trends, sparklines sit beside individual lines, and a Pareto shows which lines contribute the bulk of the total.
  1. 48 Choosing the right Excel chart Column, line, pie, combo and modern chart types 4 min
  2. 49 Column charts in Excel Insert, format and label a column chart 5 min
  3. 50 Line charts in Excel Show trends over time with a line chart 4 min
  4. 51 Pie charts in Excel Show proportions and parts of a whole 4 min
  5. 52 Combo charts in Excel Column and line chart with a secondary axis 4 min
  6. 53 Formatting charts in Excel Titles, data labels, colours and chart styles 7 min
  7. 54 Sparklines in Excel Line, column and win-loss mini charts in cells 5 min
  8. 55 Funnel, Pareto and waterfall charts in Excel Modern charts for business data 5 min
  9. 56 Histogram, box and whisker, treemap and sunburst Advanced Excel chart types 6 min
07 PivotTables and PivotCharts: data analysis made easy 10 lessons · 33 min The sales order data used here resembles a buyer's records. Build PivotTable totals by category and store, group dates into periods and use slicers to select stores. Add PivotCharts and refresh the analysis with the following week's sales.
  1. 57 PivotTables 101 in Excel What a PivotTable does and the sales dataset 5 min
  2. 58 Preparing data for PivotTables Clean data with TRIM, PROPER, find and replace 5 min
  3. 59 Create your first PivotTable in Excel Insert a PivotTable from a sales table 1 min
  4. 60 PivotTable fields in Excel Rows, values, columns and Value Field Settings 2 min
  5. 61 PivotTable summaries in Excel Sales by product category and grouping by date 4 min
  6. 62 Slicers in Excel Filter PivotTables with clickable buttons 3 min
  7. 63 PivotCharts in Excel Create interactive charts from a PivotTable 5 min
  8. 64 PivotTable design Tab Report layouts, PivotTable styles and number formats 5 min
  9. 65 Refresh a PivotTable in Excel Update pivots when source data changes 2 min
  10. 66 Excel Ninja Challenge PivotTable sales by region, category and monthly trend 1 min
08 Advanced Excel functions: lookups, text and arrays 11 of 12 lessons · 51 min Transfer the lookup methods practised on HR data to a supplier list. VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP and INDEX and MATCH retrieve quotes and product details, with IFERROR handling errors. Extract product code segments with LEFT and MID, work with delivery dates, and use UNIQUE, FILTER, SORT and SORTBY to produce lists and rankings of lines.
  1. 67 Lookup functions in Excel The PeopleInsight HR dataset and why lookups matter 2 min
  2. 68 VLOOKUP in Excel Find employee data across sheets with exact match 4 min
  3. 69 XLOOKUP in Excel Exact match, if not found and two-way lookup 6 min
  4. 70 IFERROR in Excel Handle lookup errors in VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP formulas 3 min
  5. 71 INDEX and MATCH in Excel A flexible alternative to VLOOKUP 6 min
  6. 72 CONCAT and TEXTJOIN in Excel Combine employee names and text with a delimiter 3 min
  7. 73 LEFT, RIGHT and MID in Excel Extract parts of a text code like DAL-SAL-0001 7 min
  8. 74 TODAY, EOMONTH and NETWORKDAYS in Excel Date calculations for HR data 5 min
  9. 75 UNIQUE function in Excel Extract a distinct list with dynamic arrays 6 min
  10. 76 FILTER function in Excel Dynamic array filtering with AND and OR criteria 5 min
  11. 77 SORT and SORTBY in Excel Sort data dynamically with formulas 4 min
09 Project: task automation with data validation and forms 9 lessons · 49 min Adapt TaskFlow's task columns to the milestones of a range's critical path. Samples, orders and deliveries can each carry a status drop-down, an overdue colour highlight, a Gantt-style timeline and a count of working days remaining.
  1. 79 TaskFlow project tracker in Excel Overview of the task tracker dashboard 4 min
  2. 80 Designing a task tracker in Excel TaskFlow layout, columns and headers 5 min
  3. 81 Data validation in Excel Status and priority drop-down lists in TaskFlow 8 min
  4. 82 Conditional formatting in Excel Highlight overdue and completed tasks 8 min
  5. 83 Gantt chart in Excel Build a project timeline with conditional formatting 6 min
  6. 84 Data bars and icon sets in Excel Visual priority and progress in TaskFlow 6 min
  7. 85 NETWORKDAYS and TODAY in Excel Days remaining and task deadlines in TaskFlow 5 min
  8. 86 Protect a sheet and lock cells in Excel Secure the TaskFlow tracker workbook 4 min
  9. 87 Testing an Excel task tracker Stress test TaskFlow with sample data 3 min

Instructors

Who teaches it.

Virginia Thorn smiling at the camera, dark hair tied back, wearing a navy top.

Instructor, Excel with AI

Virginia Thorn

Emmy Award winner. Teaches Excel with AI at Coding Liquids.

Questions

Asked before starting.

Which Excel course can retail buyers take?

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids covers spreadsheet work that retail buyers use during the week. It teaches the Excel for margin and mark-up calculations, sales summaries by line, category and store using SUMIFS and PivotTables, Pareto charts showing the lines sustaining a range, supplier quote comparisons with XLOOKUP and a critical path through TaskFlow. The sales order examples are similar to buyers' data. The selection on this page comprises 57 lessons, totalling 4 hours 33 minutes.

How can a retail buyer calculate margin and mark-up for each line in Excel?

The opening lessons of The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration provide the formulas: take cost away from selling value, then divide that difference by selling value for margin or by cost for mark-up. Display the result as a percentage. Referencing a target margin cell with an absolute reference lets a change to that target carry through the list, while IFERROR handles missing figures without displaying an error. These methods are taught through a personal budget and can also be applied to a line list.

Can Excel help a retail buyer decide which lines to keep, reorder or drop?

The choice remains with the buyer, with Excel supplying evidence. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration teaches IFS labels based on chosen thresholds through a sales performance example, SORTBY for rankings by sales or margin and FILTER for lists of lines below a target. A Pareto chart reveals the leading lines' share of the total, and sparklines show the direction of each line's trend.

How can retail buyers use a spreadsheet to keep samples and deliveries on schedule?

Use a task row for each milestone in TaskFlow, the tracker built in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration. Rows hold a priority, a deadline and a status selected from a drop-down. Conditional formatting highlights overdue rows and creates their Gantt-style bars; NETWORKDAYS together with TODAY calculates the working days remaining. Sheet protection safeguards formulas while suppliers' dates are entered.

Will this course teach retail buyers buying strategy or trend forecasting?

No. Buying strategy, trend forecasting, supplier negotiation and merchandise planning systems fall outside The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration, which teaches Excel. None of its datasets represents a retail range. Its relevance to buyers lies in spreadsheet tasks: calculating margins, summarising sales by line and store, preparing range review charts and tracking orders and deliveries.

Excel with AI

See the whole course.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: 16 hours of video in 186 lessons, built around 14 projects, with lifetime access, a Certificate of Completion and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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