Merchandising is the department which mediates marketing and production departments. It is Space optimization through effective Brand/Package allocation, focusing on gaining first position, providing greatest exposure of brands to all consumers, creating a consistent, orderly and clean appearance for the products, maximizing the use of POS to increase consumer awareness of brand and promotions.
Merchandising is a process through which products a replanned, developed, executed and presented to the buyer. It includes directing and overseeing the development of product line from start to finish. Marketing and merchandising department: A team of merchandisers and marketers work together under a profit controls head. Merchandisers handle the foreign buyers. The teams are made according to the buyers being handled.
Merchandising is the department which mediates marketing and production departments. Sometimes, merchandising department will have to do costing and pricing also. In any case, the merchandiser is the person whose responsibility is to execute the orders perfectly as per the costing and pricing. So it is a very valuable department. Following are the main responsibilities of merchandisers.
Two type of merchandising done in garment exports
- Marketing merchandising.
- Product merchandising.
Marketing merchandising
The main function of marketing merchandising is
- product Development
- Costing
- Ordering Marketing merchandising is to bring orders costly products development and it has direct contact with the buyer.
Product merchandising
Product merchandising is done in the unit. This includes all the responsibilities from sourcing to finishing i.e. first sample onwards, the products merchandising work start and ends till shipment.
A Merchandisers key responsibility is as follows:
- Product Development
- Market and Product Analysis
- Selling the concept
- Booking orders
- Confirming Deliveries
- Designing and Sampling
- Costing
- Raw Material
- Flow Monitoring
- Production Follow Ups
- Payments Follow
- Internal & external communication,
- Sampling
- Lab dips
- Accessories & Trims
- Preparing internal order sheets
- Preparing purchase orders
- Advising and assisting production,
- Advising quality department about the quality level
- Mediating production and quality departments
- Giving shipping instructions and the following shipping,
- Helping documentation department
- Taking responsibility for inspections and
- Following up the shipment.
Internal & external communication
Earlier, we had seen the importance of communication with buyers. In the same way, internal communication is also very much valuable. As the other departments will follow the instructions given by the merchandising department, they have very high value. Other departments don’t know the buyer’s instructions; they know only the merchandising department’s instructions. So it is the sole responsibility of merchandising department to instruct other departments the specifications and instructions of buyer’s orders clearly.
Even a small omission, mistake or deviation of instruction may create big problems. Sometimes, they may not be correctable. Hence all the instructions to be double checked before being informed by other departments. Prevention is better than cure.
Department structure and Functioning
Department
Structure
