RETAIL MERCHENDISING

Retail Merchendising

Retail Merchendising

Introduction

The notion of brand has become a quintessential element in the spheres of production, distribution and consumption. There is little that remains unbranded in some respect, and, even those that seek to create goods devoid of the obvious visual trappings of “brand” do so by constructing a specific and clear set of values around their products. Branding has, therefore, become one of the most important aspects of business consideration irrespective of sector or product.

Retailers have been just as involved in branding issues as the manufacturers of consumer goods, or those selling business-to-business services. However, retailers' efforts at branding draw on a different array of tools and components to those organizations in different sectors. Retailers have at their disposal the “usual” elements of brand identity: name, symbol, packaging, and advertising. They can additionally draw on those dimensions that have been identified in studies of store image (Davies and Ward, 2002, p. 178 - drawing on the work of, for example, Bloemer and de Ruyter, 1998; Grewal et al., 1998; Lindquist, 1974; Martineau, 1958; Porter and Claycomb, 1997).

In addition to changes in retailing, societies are becoming fragmented, and there is a large variation between the customers in one location compared to customers in another. According to US Census data, the minority population rose approximately 34 percent from 1990 to 2000, compared with a growth of 5.9 percent for the Caucasian population. Over the past decade, household income growth of African American (32.5 percent), Hispanic (24.3 percent), and Asian American (23.1 percent) homes far surpassed that of Caucasian households (14.2 percent). This growth translates into increased retail buying power, particularly apparel retail, since minority groups rate fashion as high priority ( Crossing Cultures, 2002). Hence, retailers are finding that it is important to structure a particular store based on the needs of the local population. Micromarketing has evolved as a tool that retailers use to customize the product offerings in a store based on the taste of the local consumers.

Discussion

Micromarketing merchandising is the buying of customized products using marketing mix elements at the store level, instead of buying the same products for every store in the chain. Micromarketing allows retail chain managers to take large operation advantages and yet be able to operate with the flexibility of small independent neighborhood stores. In short, it involves buying products based on the requirements of customers of a particular area (Montgomery, 1997). Micromarketing differs from target marketing. In target marketing, retailers aim to sell products that provide only for a certain target market, whereas in micromarketing merchandising, retailers make changes in the product offerings to meet the needs of diverse segments within the target market.

This paper studies various methods of micromarketing merchandising employed by buyers in numerous apparel retail chains. For example, some chains have a standard stock list that requires each store in a retail chain to carry the same merchandise stock, whereas other chains use the optional stock list approach which gives each of the stores flexibility to adjust its ...