Page 182 - DMGT552_VISUAL_MERCHANDISING

Unit 9: Merchandise Presentation

9.2.3 Perform Qualitative Analysis Notes

Most professionals will agree that the buying process is 90% analytical and 10% intuitive.
In other words, you must do your homework to achieve any level of success. But your efforts
will be rewarded. As the most critical aspect of a successful operation, buying/merchandise
management is what retail is all about.

“Qualitative Analysis” refers to “identifying the proper components in a mixture”. In this case,
the mixture is the merchandise plan and the components that affect this plan are as follows:

 Customer profile analysis
 Who are our best customers, and what are their buying behaviours and attitudes?
 Who do we want our customers to be?
 Who are our secondary customers, and what should we be buying for them?
Winning specialty store concepts focus on one “individual” and build their merchandise
mix to please this specific shopper. Learn right away that you can’t be everything to
everybody.

 Department analysis: To effectively forecast sales and purchase the right product, you
need a further breakdown of your store’s major departments.

Example: A typical family shoe store may have the following departments: men’s
footwear, women’s footwear, children’s footwear and accessories. The men’s department may
be made up of the following subcategories or “classes”: dress shoes, sport shoes, boots and
slippers.

To plan at the “class” level, you need sales and inventory data at the “class” level.
 Key Department Trend: The professional buyer is always looking for trends in his market.

Example: What is happening in men’s footwear? Maybe Western boots are growing in
popularity, brown dress shoes have been declining for the last two seasons and black sport
shoes are hot with the youth market. Do you always run out of large sizes in slippers weeks
before Xmas?
Trend information is available from a number of sources, including trade publications,
merchandise suppliers, the competition, other stores in the U.S. and Europe, and your own
experience.

 Major Vendor Analysis: “Information is power.” Even a minor analysis of the performance
of your major vendors can identify significant buying issues.

 Advertising Review: Increased traffic flow often results in higher sales. To this end,
advertising and promotions are used to improve traffic levels. The buying and advertising
departments must work closely together to ensure the company’s investments in this area
result in strong performance.
A promotional calendar outlining event dates, media buys and budgets should be
developed and taken into consideration when the merchandise planning process takes
place. Buyers may have to coordinate product deliveries with promotions, or vice versa.
A successful promotion last year may be hard to equal this season, or, by contrast, a poor
promotion may require a higher forecast for this season.

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