Loading ...
« Bravo’s New Fashion Show | Home | L.A.’s Garment Center Needs You »
The Mystery of Fashion Merchandising
By admins | May 9, 2009
We have received many inquiries, especially from fashion students, regarding fashion merchandising. Generally you all have been wondering, what exactly is fashion merchandising? Who hires a merchandiser? And what qualifications do I need to work in fashion merchandising? Well, we have found a fashion merchandising guru to help set the record straight with all the nitty-gritty details. Melissa McGraw the co-founder of workchic.com worked as a fashion merchandiser for many years and has contributed the informative post below, enjoy!
It had always been a dream of mine to work in the fashion industry. Here I was a girl from a small town in Pennsylvania determined to make it big in the New York City fashion world. My very first job when I arrived in 1995 was that of Merchandising Coordinator for a major department store buying office located right in the heart of the garment district. I remember getting the offer three weeks after I graduated college. I hung up the phone overjoyed yet filled with trepidation. What exactly was a Merchandising coordinator? Could I do the job successfully?
I sort of knew what merchandising was since I had taken fashion classes in college. But I wanted to find out more so I turned to my fashion textbooks. The definition described Fashion merchandising as studying retailing, merchandising, marketing, and management. Merchandisers learn about fashion trends and design, fabrics and their use, and garment construction.
Positions in merchandising included buyers, department managers, merchandising managers, fashion coordinators, product developers, and merchandise planners.
Ok that definition is kind of vague don’t you think? I still didn’t know what a merchandiser did but I jumped into the job anyway with a sink or swim attitude. As I learned later throughout my career in the NYC fashion industry, a merchandising department in one company meant a product development team in the other. They were often one in the same. The term ‘merchandising’ had an entirely different meaning depending on the company you were working for. So why is this term merchandising constantly up for interpretation? Can’t there just be one definition? Here are some examples of job titles that may clear up some of this mystery.
Merchandise Coordinator- This position is now often referred as Retail merchandise coordinator especially if you are working for a manufacturer or are working on the wholesale side of the fashion industry. Merchandise coordinators are responsible for:
- Maintaining the integrity of their company’s fixtures in specific retail accounts-i.e. Macys, according to their company’s planogram or specifications. We all know that if the merchandise is not out then sales will be affected. It is the merchandise coordinator’s responsibility to get those goods out onto the floor!
- Responsible for getting the stock out from the stockroom and onto the shelves, ensuring proper signage is out, and proper markdowns are taken for each store in their assigned territory.
- The merchandise coordinator communicates this information (i.e. customer feedback, pictures of the fixtures) back to the sales team so they can gain knowledge of what is taking place in their account.
Visual Merchandise Coordinator- Whether employed by a wholesale or retail company, are responsible for all elements of visual presentation, including windows, interior displays, build-ups, lay-ins and graphics in a store. In this position you will:
- Educate and reinforce the company merchandising standards
- Plan and execute floor sets
- Train and develop visual merchandisers (multi-store specialist)
- Communicate to store management and staff corporate directives addressed on conference calls and emails
- Recap store progress on a weekly basis to Store Manager
- Communicate merchandising needs and trends, ensure inventory levels for displays
- Responsible for making sure all visual areas are clean and organized, and lighting is properly directed
Merchandiser- The responsibilities of a Merchandiser on the wholesale or vendor side in fashion speak, is a very important position to all departments. You are essentially working as the liaison between the sales, planning, and design teams. One of the responsibilities of this position is to develop a merchandise line plan by month and by sku count. Some of the other duties include:
- Determine volume drivers and essential programs, retail pricing, and fabric recommendations for the collections based on past retail selling history
- Shop the market and competition and presenting a merchandising strategy to the design team.
- Communicate changes to strategy and assortment to planning, allocation, technical, visual and licensing teams.
- Edit the assortment by reviewing the assortment and discussing store distribution and store groups.
- Update and maintain the buy sheets on a weekly basis.
- Provide input on budgets, sales, gross margin and receipt flow.
- Provide recommendations for department weekly meetings, based on sales trends versus sales plan of the style.
- Identify product opportunities for future seasons by translating trends. Analyze the current season’s opportunities from retail sales.
- Working with the sales teams to make sure their specific products needs are being addressed.
Hopefully this clears up any confusion if you are on the job hunt for a merchandising position! Just remember each and every experience is a learning experience and makes you that much more marketable in the future. Best of luck!
Don’t forget to take a minute to check out Melissa’s website at workchic.com.
Here is more related scoop;
Topics: fashion industry, jobs | 7 Comments » 
Email This Post
May 9th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
[...] admins placed an interesting blog post on The Mystery of Fashion Merchandising | 39thandbroadway.comHere’s a brief overviewThis blog is devoted to fashion insiders who work in New York’s garment center and the fashion industry and need a place to gossip, vent and network. [...]
May 9th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
[...] the original: The Mystery of Fashion Merchandising | 39thandbroadway.com Filed under Fashion News · Tagged with and-the, garment-center, industry-and, [...]
May 10th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Oooh, thanks so much for this, I have been trying to figure out for a while if I could/should switch from design to merchandising.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] See the original post: The Mystery of Fashion Merchandising | 39thandbroadway.com [...]
May 11th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Well done Melissa! It’s amazing to me how many people, even in the industry, always think fashion merchandising is only visual merchandising.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:31 am
Agree, great post! Many people don’t think about the durability of the retail fixtures they are purchasing, they just want them to look good.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
oh wow, the titles are definitely more glamorous than all the work involved!