Page 153 - DMGT550_RETAIL_MANAGEMENT

Retail Management

Notes It is common for retailers to grade at a department level, but as data becomes easier to access and
as planning and transactional systems become more powerful, we are seeing more and more
people dropping the level down to category.
What’s So Difficult About Planning Assortments?
With Assortment Planning, the planning exercise is fast, intuitive and efficient. Without automated
planning tools, however, doing the entire job manually would inundate your staff with these
tasks:
1. Manage the end-to-end process of building, managing and planning assortments for new
and existing products (and their variations)
2. Keep up with assortment hierarchies, including start and end dates and unlimited
assortment information
3. Track attribute mix versus target
4. Analyze best sellers from previous or similar assortments
5. Plan unique assortments to accommodate each location’s specific situation

6. Plan placeholder and proxy items with like history
7. Plan and track items using multiple measures and versions and reconcile back to financial
goals

8. Plan by average store, cluster or store in your retail channel
9. Plan by campaign, book or media drop for your direct channel

9.4 Methods of Merchandise Procurement

Merchandise displays are special presentations of a store’s products or services to the buying
public. The nature of these displays may range somewhat from industry to industry, but all
merchandise displays are predicated on basic principles designed to increase product purchases.
Indeed, merchandise displays are an integral element of the overall merchandising concept, which
seeks to promote product sales by coordinating marketing, advertising, and sales strategies.

Many business consultants believe that small business owners are among the leaders in innovative
merchandise display strategies. W. Rae Cowan noted in Chain Store Age Executive, for example,
that “in many instances, smaller specialty chains are leading the way in store ambience supporting
their overall marketing strategy in a broad range of categories from fashion through hardware
and house wares and building supplies areas. By their very nature, specialty stores depend on
their fixturing to generate a differentiation or niche in the marketplace. And being physically
smaller in some cases allows for faster response to market trends and conditions…. Successful
retailers today are using their fixturing to productively dispense their merchandise and
communicate an appropriate environment on the retail floor.”
Merchandise displays generally take one of several basic forms:
1. Storefront Window Displays: These typically open on to a street or shopping mall walk
or courtyard and are intended to attract passerby that might not otherwise enter the store.
2. Showcase Displays: These typically feature items that (1) are deemed to be too valuable
for display in storefront set-ups, or (2) are niche items of high interest to the business’s
primary clientele. These display centers are usually located in high traffic areas and typically
feature multiple tiers for product display and a sliding door on the clerk’s side for access.

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