What is Merchandising | Merchandising Definition

What is merchandising? 

What is Merchandising?

Merchandising comes from the word merchandise. Merchandise means commodities or goods to be bought and sold. The word merchandising means the activity of promoting the sale of goods.

The activities include- 

-working very closely with buyers/seller and determining range of merchandise/goods to be sold 

-buying them at right time 

-calculating their price 

-taking responsibility for promotion, display, sales forecast and stock levels 

- giving policy guidelines to buyer 

-producing current sales figures 

-producing sales history reports 

-determining a strategy with the Category/Merchandise Manager 

-monitoring stock management & allocation to stores 

-raising purchase orders to match range plan from buyers 

-developing detailed spreadsheets for the buyers 

-planning and financial control 

-ensuring purchase order raised to budgets 

-negotiating cost prices with factories/buyers 

-approving pre-production samples 

-monitoring pre-production/production 

-organising shipping documents 

Actually a merchandiser is responsible for almost everything-from order analysis to shipment and finally payment realization. Merchandising means to arrange all the required raw materials and to make the goods ready to sell them to customers. Work, work and work – all day long. Handling 40/45 orders/styles at a time. Chasing buyer for comments/approval, chasing suppliers for raw materials/trims, chasing production team to maintain delivery schedule and finally chasing commercial department for shipping/documentations. To a new merchandiser merchandising is nothing but hard work done with managers! 

The definition of merchandising found in www.businessdictionary.com is as follows: 

The activity of promoting the sale of goods at retail. Merchandising activities may include display techniques, free samples, 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 time, in the right quantities, and at the right price." 

In Wikipedia it is defined as “In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.” 

In Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, the term “merchandising” is commonly used within the trading industry and denotes all marketing and sales stimulation activities around PoS (point of sale): design, creation, promotion, care and training of the sales staff. A merchandiser is someone who is continuously involved in business promotion by buying and selling of goods. In Asian countries, such as India, this term is more synonymous with activities right from sampling and idea conception to dispatching of the shipment. It is a job description that involves leading and working with different departments within the organization, suppliers and buyers to deal with timely deadlines and accepted quality levels.