The activity of promoting the sale of goods at retail or supply chain level. Merchandising on the spot demonstration, pricing, shelf talkers special offers and other point of sale methods. According to American Marketing Association, Merchandising encompasses “Planning involved in marketing the right merchandise or service at the right place, at the right qualities at the right price.”
Merchandising planning:
This is a data driven approach of selecting, buying, presenting and selling investment and satisfy the consumer demand. Merchandise planning seeks to satisfy consumer demand by making the right merchandise available at the right places, times, prices and quantities.
Merchandise are using critical path or “Time & Action Calendar” to execute the orders. Actually they make the back calculation from ETD date & set all production lead time & approval process-
Process of Merchandise planning is as follows-
Forecast of Sales (Product design & category being select here), Merchandise Budget: Consumers buying power & need derive the budget. It also influenced by the market share acquired by the company. Merchandise Control: Control the export movement after quality production.
The process of maintaining records on all steps involved in handling merchandise is called “Merchandise Control”. It manages data on sales,costs,profits & turn over.
Merchandise profitability actually termed as “Merchandise Margin”
“Merchandise margin” is the amount or percentage of the profits earned after covering production costs include the materials, labor and equipment used ,but does not include other costs, such as administrative, marketing or leasing costs for equipment or space.
Merchandise margins helps business owners recognize a profitable product from less profitable, or completely unprofitable, products to make changes to existing and new product lines to increase profitability.
Factors affecting profitability in a Manufacturing plan
Cash follow
Strength of supply chain
Production efficiency
Process control
Tractability
Payment collection efficiency against export.
Creating the initial seasonal sales pattern
Every Merchandiser should think carefully before starting a season on the product group. He/she need to study below to initiate the sales pattern-
Trend forecasting
Potential global or regional event.
Fabric or trim availability to use.
Product development capacity.
Lead time of sales window
Religious festival.
Workers skill level & production capacity.
Last year best selling items.
Normally customers buy for season as below-
Spring Summer (January-March sales period)
High Summer (April-June sales period)
Autumn Winter (July- September sales period)
Winter (October-December sales period)