merchandising
Working hand-in-hand with the European buying team, our merchandisers are charged with the adrenaline-fuelled responsibility of keeping abreast of what’s selling across the whole of Europe. It’s this information which ultimately drives our retail business, ensuring profitability and continued success. With this in mind the team is split into the following key areas:
Jewellery division. Responsible for the seasonal planning and sales activity of 'fashion, young novelty and special occasion jewellery', 'ear piercing, unisex and sterling silver jewellery' across Europe.
Accessories division. Responsible for the seasonal planning and sales activity of a multitude of products, including cosmetics, hair, belts, bags, purses and even footwear.
Allocation, replenishment & analytics function. Focused on the analysis of product performance trends as well as the continuous improvement of our stock allocation process.
The merchandisers working within the Jewellery and Accessories divisions operate a standard planning and trading model.
- The planning aspect of their role is sitting down with the buyers well before the next season, to go over everything from forthcoming trends and historical performance and advising on what volumes of a certain product to buy and at what price.
- The trading side means they need to react tactically and responsively to sales reports and stock levels, often visiting stores with an active involvement in space planning, mark downs, re-orders and promotions.
The allocation, replenishment and analytics department is a brand-new, centralised function with 2 distinct areas of responsibility; both intrinsic in guaranteeing that each store in our European retail network reaches its full potential.
- The first is to review, assess and continuously improve our European allocation and replenishment process to ensure that we are getting maximum efficiencies.
- The second is to identify key sales trends by country (we call them ‘a Zone’), Region, District and individual market place and apply this analysis to shape the product ranging for new and existing stores.
