International Retail Buying & Merchandising
International Fashion Branding
International Retail Buying & Merchandising
‘Evaluate the various buying structures that exist in order to support a retail buying function and the impact of these buying structures on the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer. Use illustrative examples to support your answer.’
Within the retail environment customer satisfaction and company profitability are a crucial consideration in the merchandise choice of the buyer (Diamond & Pintel, 2008). The range of the buyer’s duties will depend on the size of the business and can be seen as three main buying approaches; centralised, decentralised and a combination of the two. Throughout this essay the buying structures will be explored in depth and the advantages and disadvantages of each will be underlined. The difference between these three approaches will highlight further the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer and how they change depending on the type of organisation.
The buyer’s role within the retail sector is an extremely crucial one. A fashion buyer selects a range of products targeted at a specific clientele within a certain price range to hopefully gain profit for a retail company (Kang, 1999). Therefore getting the merchandise collection correct has been described as ‘the engine of success’ within retailing (Aufreiter et al., 1993). A successful buyer requires a variety of skills including communication, calculation, analysing market positions, the power of negotiation and should also be creative (Varley, 2005). There are three roles of a buyer as stated by Hirshman and Stampfl (1980), firstly as a change agent where the buyer inspires the consumer to consider purchasing new and exciting goods, secondly as a gatekeeper where the buyer will coordinate the movement of the product from supplier directly to the customer. Finally the opinion leader role will encourage the customer’s outlook however this does not necessarily result in a direct
International Retail Buying & Merchandising
‘Evaluate the various buying structures that exist in order to support a retail buying function and the impact of these buying structures on the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer. Use illustrative examples to support your answer.’
Within the retail environment customer satisfaction and company profitability are a crucial consideration in the merchandise choice of the buyer (Diamond & Pintel, 2008). The range of the buyer’s duties will depend on the size of the business and can be seen as three main buying approaches; centralised, decentralised and a combination of the two. Throughout this essay the buying structures will be explored in depth and the advantages and disadvantages of each will be underlined. The difference between these three approaches will highlight further the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer and how they change depending on the type of organisation.
The buyer’s role within the retail sector is an extremely crucial one. A fashion buyer selects a range of products targeted at a specific clientele within a certain price range to hopefully gain profit for a retail company (Kang, 1999). Therefore getting the merchandise collection correct has been described as ‘the engine of success’ within retailing (Aufreiter et al., 1993). A successful buyer requires a variety of skills including communication, calculation, analysing market positions, the power of negotiation and should also be creative (Varley, 2005). There are three roles of a buyer as stated by Hirshman and Stampfl (1980), firstly as a change agent where the buyer inspires the consumer to consider purchasing new and exciting goods, secondly as a gatekeeper where the buyer will coordinate the movement of the product from supplier directly to the customer. Finally the opinion leader role will encourage the customer’s outlook however this does not necessarily result in a direct
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