It goes without saying that the displays play very significant role in retailing and retail outlet. An attractive and informative displays can help in large volume of sales in terms of goods and services. In building a retail display, some fundamental rules should be followed to get best out of these where good deal of treasure, talent and time is involved on the part of retailer. This  golden rules are: 1. Achieve Balance It is important to make sure that the display appears balanced to the viewer, in building display. This is achieved by arranging products and props in a particular way. A display may have formal or informal balance. âFormalâ balance is achieved by balancing on each side of Continue reading
Strategic Retail Management
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 âidealâ stock for meeting Continue reading
Planning Reductions in Merchandise Budgeting
This is a very significant stage in developing the merchandise budget namely planning of reductions. âRetail reductionsâ are the difference between the merchandise itemâs original retail value and its actual final sales value. This difference is the result of three major factors namely, mark-downs, discounts and shortages. âMark downsâ are the reductions in the original retail price for the purpose of stimulating the sale of merchandise. The amount of markdown can vary considerably depending on the type of merchandise and the condition under which it is sold. âDiscountsâ are reduction in the original retail price that are granted to store employees as special fringe benefits and to special customers in recognition of their special status say senior citizens, disadvantaged customers Continue reading
Sales Planning in Retail Merchandising
Majority of retailers use a form that summarizes the basic budgetary information for a given merchandise grouping during a specified  period  normally for a period of six months.  The retailer must select the control unit for which projections will be made, before making sales estimates. The âcontrol unitâ is the merchandising grouping that serves as the basic reporting unit for various types of information namely, past, present and future. The retailer has the choice to estimate future sales for an entire store, for a merchandise division or department, or for an individual product-line or item. The most three acceptable control units can be merchandise groups, merchandise classes and merchandise categories of all these three, experts recommend merchandise categories as the Continue reading
Concepts of Merchandising and Merchandise Planning in Retail
Retail Merchandising Merchandising is a process involving developing, securing and managing the merchandise mix to meet the firmâs marketing objectives. The merchandise Âmix stands for the retailerâs total offering, be it goods or services or both. The merchandising process is a three tier structural set of activities. The following configuration gives the idea of merchandising process. The first stage or tier is to do with developing the merchandise-mix which is composed of two elements namely product and service-mix. The second stage or tier is securing the merchandise-mix which involves two highly skillful and  specialized  activities namely the buying process and the procurement process. Here, the retailer determines âfrom whereâ, âwhenâ and âhowâ to get products into the stores. The third Continue reading
The Concept of Retail Sites and itâs Classification
A retail site  is the actual physical location from which a retail business operates. According to retail specialists, retail site is one of the principal tools obtaining and maintaining a competitive advantage through spatial monopoly. A given site is unique when its âpositional qualitiesâ serve a particular trading area consumer in way that no other site can match. That is why, retailerâs site problem has solution in its identification evaluation and final decision of perfectly matching site. The first step in appraising retail site locations is to identify all potential site alternatives. The number of site alternatives in any given trading area can range from an extremely limited to a very large selection. Therefore, before a retailer attempts to have Continue reading