Retail Merchandising vs Retail Buying

Retail stores in the fashion industry depend on keeping the latest styles in stock. Fashion buying and merchandising are two primary roles in establishing a store full of clothing and accessories that meet the demands of customers. The jobs are related with some similar duties, and some employers may combine the duties into one position, but there are subtle differences in the jobs.

Merchandising Purpose

A fashion merchandiser aims to create a store experience that appeals to customers. She is sometimes involved in selecting the items that are available in the store, but she also focuses on how to set up those items within the store. The way the store is set up affects the flow of customers through the space as well as which pieces are highlighted through prominent display. The goal of a fashion merchandiser is to meet the needs of the customers while increasing sales for the business.

Buying Purpose

The primary focus of the fashion buyer is to choose the clothing and accessories that will go into the store. This duty is sometimes incorporated into the merchandising position, or the two may collaborate to make buying decisions. The buyer stays current on the latest fashion trends to decide what customers might want to buy next. She wades through the various upcoming trends to decide which ones are ideal for that specific store. She orders and tracks the merchandise as it is shipped from the supplier.

Merchandising Skills

Merchandisers need both fashion and business skills to succeed. They need a sense of the target demographic and what they want to see when they walk into the store. He/she needs an understanding of how to display items to make them more appealing to increase sales. Her fashion knowledge enables her to decide which pieces to highlight through displays. He/she must have the skills and physical ability to set up store displays for the merchandise. Some aspects of marketing are possibly included in the job description.

Buying Skills

A fashion buyer needs a clear understanding of what type of merchandise the store wants. This requires the analysis of the typical customer, as well as fashion trends. She needs the mathematical skills to buy within the target budget to supply the store with products that fit the customers' desired price range. He/she works with a variety of people, including store management, merchandisers and the clothing suppliers. Dealing with the suppliers requires the business knowledge to negotiate prices, communicate and ensure the items are shipped on time.

Catching Retail Pilferage

Every year, retailers, businesses has to conduct an annual audit and inventory check of all their merchandise on hand.  To ensure that whatever inventory information they have in their computer system are accurate, to know if they have excess inventories or there has been losses, and more often there are alot of losses due to pilferage, wrong encoding of quantities of stocks, typographical error in inputs sometime in the past several months.

Its a tedious process, more often being done manually.  I have worked for a major footwear brand in the past that after conducting the inventories, we discovered a huge discrepancy in the quantity indicated by our system as against the actual stocks on hand of each stores and after carefully reviewing inventories, deliveries, actual counts, we conducted a thorough investigation on the matter.

I have to personally review input data, financial data, stock records and when I couldn't seem to actually find any probable explanation, I decided to look into our importation records, bill of lading yet still did not significantly gave me an answer, so I have to request records of all past cash register receipts from the accounting department. A tedious, prolonged hours of checking, auditing, analyzing the receipts, Lo and behold, I got my answer, there were several transactions that does not match the actual record.

I was curious why the receipts has shown several transactions that have suspicious void cash transactions, yet several credit card transactions and later also being voided.  This made me delve deeper into the matter and requested top management to do reassignments of staffs, Previous cashiers and store managers has to be transferred to other outlet stores, the old sales staff has to learn cash registering, I hired new staffs to fill the vacancy due to the "promotion" of previous sales and inventory staffs.

I have to observe the behavioral pattern amongst those I have to move to other stores, especially the store managers and the cashiers, and whenever I frequently visit them on a regular basis, gets to hear some complaints of their reassignments, ranting their dissatisfaction and grievances.  They not having a single clue that the very person who had them reassigned was me.

I have to pacify, explain managements decision was for their benefit of future promotions to be area managers, I have to come up with several valid reasoning to show them that their job movement was for their benefit in the long run.

And those that complaint the most, gets my attention and after the investigation was over in 3 months, I found out that those who have shown grievance over their area reassignment were involved in a unilateral intent to defraud the company of stocks, even cash from the coffer of their store sales.

After going through all the due process that I have requested HR to conduct, and the admittance of three of the co-conspirators to defraud the company and pinpointing each and every store managers and cashiers involved, the company filed criminal charges against the accused, for which summing it up, in 4 years, we had been defrauded of over 5 million pesos, in inventory pilferage and cash pilferage.

So bottom line, the saying that its always an insider most often holds true, and to be complacent and too trusting in delegating tasks does not mean well at times.  Though this experience and instance may be a case-in study for us, I have to make new changes in merchandising, inventory management policies within the company to avoid the same from happening.  I also have to institute new policies on rewarding best employees, honest staffs, gave a lot of "carrot on stick" benefits to operational staffs and management.

Merchandising & Stock Replenishment

Merchandising and stocking are essential tasks in virtually any retail business. Effective merchandising techniques prevent a haphazard arrangement of goods that can hinder sales, while efficient stocking procedures ensure the merchandise is always available for customer purchase. While the merchandising and stocking functions are closely related, there are also some key differences between the two.

Merchandising Identification

Merchandising is a retail marketing process entailing the visual displaying of goods as well as product selection. Merchandising involves determining the proper product mix for the store, the shelf position of each item and creating and building attractive displays and signage. Merchandising also includes the creation of special promotions and pricing. When done effectively, merchandising serves as a type of "silent salesperson," as it draws customers to merchandise and displays, often leading to purchases.

Stocking Identification

Stocking is the process of filling the store's shelves and displays with merchandise for sale, commonly referred to as "stock." Stocking can also refer to the process of replenishing and storing goods in the store's backroom or warehouse. Store employees known as stock clerks are responsible for keeping the shelves full in their particular departments and reordering merchandise when supplies run low. In larger retail establishments, stock replenishment occurs with the aid of an automated inventory management system.

Relationship

Store management's merchandising policies and practices largely determine the stocking needs of a retail establishment. For example, in a clothing store, if management decides to run a sale on a new line of summer fashions along with creating a special display, store personnel will likely need to order extra merchandise and ensure the display remains fully stocked during the promotional period. If grocery store management decides to carry a new product, stockers need to place the item in the appropriate shelf location.

Job Duties

From an employment perspective, stocking duties are more physical in nature while the merchandising role requires more analytical and creative abilities. Stockers spend much of their time transporting and lifting merchandise while in the process of filling shelves and building displays. The merchandising role requires the analysis of sales data and trends, such as when determining what items to carry or to put on sale. Creative ability is helpful for thinking of innovative and profitable ways to display products.

First 5 years in Retailing

Today I celebrate my 5th year in the retailing business which began in a small town construction and hardware store, where my primary task is to prepare purchase order, negotiate and select hardware spare parts and construction materials, prepare the weekly collectibles from valued clients.

I remember having this thick leather bound black book that contains all the names of our valued customers who would normally come and buy either their trucking and motorpool spare part needs, purchase cement, plywood boards, enamel paints even just a few grams of construction nails.

I have always fancy to learn all about what the typical hardware stores are like, growing up in a community seeing the mainstream chinese family either has a hardware store or a grocery store.  I choose to be immerse with the former to begin my journey in the whole world of business most especially retailing business.

What differentiates this first hands on job with my succeeding jobs is that, in a regular business, our prices are dictated by customer relationships. We do not have a fixed(set in stone pricing), the price we give our buyers depends primarily if they are new customers, they are given the regular price, a mark up of 30% to 80%, as for our valued regular clients, who normally would ask for discounts, we can go as low as having 10%-15% margin.  So primarily our pricing mechanism is dictated by relationships.

Initially, I've got to learn a whole set of business acumen, negotiation and even hands-on learning of the various merchandise, there was even a time when I have to go underneath a customers vehicle just to check their car muffler if it has a leak on it.  On my own, I thought, I would want to learn everything I have to learn while I'm working at this construction and hardware store, as I would only have to past this way once in my life, if someday I get lucky enough and able to set up my own business, who knows I might be in the same hardware business afterall.

After just a brief stay in my first retail job, I got a job offer from a bigger retailer, this time a construction materials depot which I have to be the Store Manager managing the paints, tiles, electrical, construction materials, furnitures even the doorknobs, nails and screws.  Here I learned to manage people, I acquired the customer service skills.  It was also where I encountered the most vicious amongst customer complaints that one time, a customer came and poked a gun at my face since he purchase from the previous store manager who quit the job and still wasn't able to get the water tanks he needs for his house.  As shocking as it may be to some, but I took it up with much courage to talk sense into him and luckily the customer who is a military official was pacified and got his full-refund.

It was also as a Store supervisor for the construction depot that I learned how to climb display gondolas to check for stacks of inventories on storage atop our selling shelves.  I learned to give motivational sales talk to my sales crew to boost their moral at work and even act as their social therapist whenever they feel downtrodden from so many family and work troubles.  I also learned to come up with sales training techniques to improve the target sales of the team.

After a year, I got a job offer to be a merchandise buyer for a bigger mall, specifically for their department store, to which I have no idea whatsoever is the task of being in merchandising is all about since my first two jobs are store operation related.

I was given 3 weeks to learn everything about the store inventories, clean up the mess, dispose damage merchandise, clean up the inventory system, learn all about Microsoft Inventory System, JDA System, SAP System and even the old-school way of doing inventory, the index card compilation.  It was a juggling task to negotiate with vendors, sellers, create purchase order, reviewing inventories and looking for missing inventories.

I even have to personally take the initiative to work beyond office hours, spend the weekend in the office or in the store back-end to clean up the store mess.  I inherited a troubled department that only sells 1.3M each month during the regular season and 2.5M on a peak month.  I have an overstocked inventories of 14 months(the normal carrying inventory is supposed to be 2.5 or 3 months of the target sales).

With speed and my willingness to learn, improve and prove my worth that I can improve a troubled department, in modesty, I was able to free up alot of inventories, improved the merchandise mix that translated to an improved sales. On my third month on the job, I hit the target sales for the month and has consistently grown the department.  Its now my 2 years and 8 months of handling this department and my monthly target is now pegged at 8M for a regular month and last years peak season, I hitted a staggering sales of 76M, which I supposed makes my boss extremely happy.  She even called me a "Magician", I really don't know why.

I hope to be able to continually linger and still outpaced the target sales in the succeeding years ahead.