The Art Of Retail Buying

Buying for retail is a demanding and challenging job that requires a creative flair, a strong awareness of fashion trends, life trends as well as good interpersonal and team working skills. Buyers and merchandisers have to ensure that the right merchandise is being sent to the right stores, at the right time, in the right quantities. This takes a blend of forward planning and rapid response to consumer demands. In combination with the other areas of the business, success comes from maximizing profit, which is achieved through anticipating customer needs and responding rapidly to immediate issues. It involves complex data analysis, liaison with the stores operation teams and balancing store stock levels. To succeed as a professional buyer, you will need strong analytical and numerical skills, an interest and understanding of consumer demands and strong commercial awareness. You also need to have an ability to understand and prioritize issues quickly and efficiently. Progression into the Merchandising function also involves the ability to manage change. The better equipped you are in your buying function the better you will be able to adapt to these changes. The best change of all is to graduate from a good buyer to an outstanding one! To handle the complexity of data and to enable you to contribute effectively in the critical role of a buyer, you need the right skill-sets and a right mind-set. Both of which can be learned in The Art of Retail Buying. This easy to read guide is written in a concise & pictorial style with colorful images that enables you to follow step-by-step each function of a buyer. The Art of Retail Buying will inspire you, motivate you and encourage you towards merchandising excellence!

Buying for retail is a demanding and challenging job that requires a creative flair, a strong awareness of fashion trends, life trends as well as good interpersonal and team working skills. Buyers and merchandisers have to ensure that the right merchandise is being sent to the right stores, at the right time, in the right quantities. This takes a blend of forward planning and rapid response to consumer demands. In combination with the other areas of the business, success comes from maximizing profit, which is achieved through anticipating customer needs and responding rapidly to immediate issues. It involves complex data analysis, liaison with the stores operation teams and balancing store stock levels. To succeed as a professional buyer, you will need strong analytical and numerical skills, an interest and understanding of consumer demands and strong commercial awareness. You also need to have an ability to understand and prioritize issues quickly and efficiently. Progression into the Merchandising function also involves the ability to manage change. The better equipped you are in your buying function the better you will be able to adapt to these changes. The best change of all is to graduate from a good buyer to an outstanding one To handle the complexity of data and to enable you to contribute effectively in the critical role of a buyer, you need the right skill-sets and a right mind-set. Both of which can be learned in The Art of Retail Buying. This easy to read guide is written in a concise & pictorial style with colorful images that enables you to follow step-by-step each function of a buyer. The Art of Retail Buying will inspire you, motivate you and encourage you towards merchandising excellence

Retail: the Art and Science is the ultimate "how to" book for the retail buyer. While some works may be big on nebulous generalities or filled with grand ideas that are more motivational than practical, this book offers real world lessons and sound explanations that can be applied in retail. Each chapter deals with one of the fundamentals that every merchant needs to understand. An agnostic approach with each topic allows these principles to be applicable to all channels of retail, whether mass market, drugstore, grocery, warehouse club, or specialty.This book is written in an illustrative style with many examples and personal stories that make each subject real. Lofty topics are explained in a real world, understandable fashion.Retail: the Art and Science will be a valuable learning tool for buyers, merchandising executives, retail professionals, even manufacturing and sales

Excerpt from Retail Buying: Modern Principles and Practice This volume on Retail Buying provides a simple and readable explanation of what is best to-day in buying principles and practice. The author has built around his own experience as a buyer and as a student and teacher of buying, and he has drawn upon the experience and the investigations of successful merchandizers in every line of retailing. Therefore, the book will be found to cover the subject briefly and concisely but yet completely. It is only within very recent years that such a work has been possible. In the "good old days" buying was done by "rule-of-thumb" methods. A science of buying was as unknown as a science of retailing. In fact it is only by developing buying methods along scientific lines, and by working out methods in the other divisions of retailing in the same way, that we can hope to put storekeeping on a rational basis. The department store and the chain store have been doing pioneer work along this line, and to them and to a small band of scattered retailers of other types must be given much of the credit. For it is generally known that a large part of their success is due to their development of scientific buying principles and practices. But the difficulty has been to adapt the methods of the larger stores, and particularly those in which it seems possible to install complete systems, to the needs of the average retailer. A system is of no value if it cannot be used. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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"The end objective of buying and merchandising is to achieve sales and gross margin objectives through effective merchandise management of a department or group of departments." —from Management of Retail Buying, Third Edition There is more to retail buying than simply forecasting consumer demand. The successful buyer employs a complex constellation of skill, art, and careful study to plan and manage the flow of merchandise from the wholesaler or marketer to the consumer. This book contains the combined wisdom, knowledge, and hard-won savvy of three of the world's foremost authorities on managing retail buying, each of whom brought a lifetime of experience to the creation of this third edition of the most important book in every retail buyer's library. This comprehensive volume covers every aspect of retail buying, from targeting desired consumers and purchasing goods tailored to their tastes and needs, to negotiating with vendors, managing inventory, and using computers to expedite the buying process. Management of Retail Buying is organized into three parts: The Buying Process, Planning and Managing Merchandise Assortments, and Where and How to Buy. Part I features an overview of the buyer's milieu; a look at how the buying process can be organized and controlled; and in-depth descriptions of the several types of buying groups, how they function, and their similarities and differences. Part II focuses on the keys to understanding the consumer, forecasting demand, and using that forecast as a basis for selecting merchandise. Because retailers of staple goods face a very different set of objectives and problems from retailers of fashion and seasonal merchandise, separate chapters are devoted to planning and control of assortments in these different types of establishments. The book's final section examines the world of suppliers, vendors, price negotiations, order placement, special services from vendors, and actual acquisition of the merchandise. The authors provide authoritative and timeless advice on competitive strategies and tactics, foreign buying, controlling the logistical factors that lie between the purchase of goods and their delivery to the point of sale, and much more. Whether you're a seasoned retail veteran or a student or novice hoping to make retailing your life's work, Management of Retail Buying, Third Edition is destined to become the most highly prized volume on your bookshelf. The standard text/reference for retail buying and merchandising is now revised, expanded, and updated for the 1990s and beyond . . . This Third Edition of one of the classics in retailing literature combines the timeless wisdom of three of the industry's giants with a detailed examination of the current state of the retailer's art. It provides comprehensive coverage of every aspect of retail buying and how to manage the buying process in order to maximize profits and minimize losses. It also offers in-depth discussions of the numerous skills and techniques needed to succeed as a buyer or merchandise manager in today's competitive retail environment, including: Organizing and controlling the buying process Understanding consumer demographics and psychographics Identifying consumer trends and forecasting demand Analyzing and interpreting sales records Planning and control of merchandise assortments Using computers to increase competitiveness Shopping vendor lines and negotiating prices and services And much more

The area of retail buying relies heavily on mathematical formulas and forecasting. The formulas themselves remain unchanged. However, the context in which they are analyzed is constantly evolving. The most successful retail buyers are able to withstand the highs and lows of business trends by utilizing analytical skills, trend forecasting, and customer knowledge. As a retail buyer for almost 20 years with various retailers, Connell draws on her experience providing practical fundamental mathematical formulas while also giving context in the current retail environment. This text gives students a step-by-step approach to understanding the mechanics of a six-month merchandising plan. Upon completion of the plan students will gain insight into how the plan is forecast into the future as well as how it is implemented at the actual purchasing level.