Unit Planning and Merchandise Lists
Unit planning is an operational management tool to plan the merchandise assortment and support. It is directed at determining the amount of inventory the retailer should carry by items and by units and answers the inventory questions of how many product items or assortment and how many units of each items or support to stock. The process of unit planning involves the use of several merchandise lists which constitute a set of operational plans for managing the total selection of merchandise. Based on the type of merchandise, the retailer carries, one or more of the following three merchandise lists namely, Basic Stock list, Model stock list and Never-out list. These merchandise lists represent essentially the ‘ideal’ stock for meeting the consumer’s merchandise needs in terms of assortment and support. 1. Basic Stock List The “basic stock list” is a planning instrument retailers use to determine the assortment and support Continue reading