Apparel Merchandising process

Apparel Merchandising process

Merchandising

Merchandising is a specialized management function within the fashion industry. It is the business that moves the world fashion from designing showroom to the retail sales floor and into the hand of consumers. Merchandising is planning, developing and presenting product lines for identified target market with regard to pricing, assortment, styling, and timing. Merchandising is about to follow up every process from raw materials to finished goods, giving all logistics support.

Apparel Merchandising

Nowadays a dream job is to be an apparel merchandiser. Apparel merchandising refers to the techniques used to sell products to consumers. It directly relates to Negotiating with existing orders, Buying & Selling goods through maintaining liaison among Buyers, Suppliers as well as factory Management. To be an apparel merchandiser to work in garments manufacturing factory or a buying house, its all about getting job in merchandising with all necessary skills.
A merchandiser is involved from costing, order getting to shipment, payment process. A merchandiser should have knowledge of costing, pricing, negotiation, booking, sampling development and good knowledge of textile, especially on fabrics.

You may like to read Working Flow Chart of Garments Merchandising Process

Apparel Merchandising process

Without merchandising, department/section one cannot think about garments industry or a buying house, a team to communicate with supplier and customer. In the garment and textile industry, the merchandising team has been playing a vital role in making, executing and closing export orders. This project aims to know the sequence of Merchandising as more as practice and to know the duties of Merchandiser such as price negotiation from a buyer, swatch making, follow up on production, quality report, arrange a final inspection, shipment, commercial activities. The function of merchandising as a working procedure, shipping terms, commercial invoice, letter of credit, qualification of merchandising and so other things like consumption, costing, accessories care instructions, etc. Simply we can say that the person who is doing apparel merchandising is called merchandiser. We can define an apparel merchandiser as, Apparel Merchandiser is the person who engages himself in sourcing, costing, organizing, arranging and promoting the sales volume of any commodities in the apparel sector. Also can be said that the person who sales product or merchandise abroad he/she may be called a merchandiser. A merchandiser is a responsible person to fulfill the requirements of the buyer and also responsible to supply the required product in due time and adequate quantities. The merchandiser is the bridge between the buyer and the manufacturer, provide the right products with on-time delivery, on-time materials sourcing enabling a company to match with the latest market trends of a product and meet the market and customer demand. As per the merchandising concept, time management is a gig to succeed one's time properly, so he can focus on value-adding actions. Merchandising is an important work in the RMG sector. Without merchandiser, no garments industry can run smoothly and without Buyer, no garments industry can exist. For this reason, buyer satisfaction is very important. The buyer who comes tour country and buy products from our garments industry. At this time of giving order if the buyer satisfied with the help of merchandiser, management then the buyer will come again to place an order. Buyers' other condition is to deliver the product in due time. Merchandiser takes care of this condition seriously because if buyers don’t get the product in due time then they will not come again that garments industry. So merchandiser are handling and caring all kinds of work taking order to ship the product and always wants to satisfy the buyer because the garments industry depends on the buyer’s satisfaction

Recording all the data and documents is essential for every merchandiser. After shipment of the garments “Merchandiser” should keep all the documents on a safe side because all the related papers given by the buyer are valuable and necessary. If the buyer wants to repeat order then the merchandiser has to follow the previous instruction. So a good, efficient, smart, merchandiser has to keep all the data and documents for future business development and order. If a merchandiser doesn’t keep the previous records or documents then he/she have to suffer and required to want the documents again and that may be a bad impression to the buyer. This will not be good for a good merchandiser. Recording all the data and documents is essential for every merchandiser.

Apparel merchandising department organogram of Factory

Merchandising Director

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Merchandising Manager

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Assistant Manager

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Senior Merchandiser

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Merchandiser

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Assistant Merchandiser

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Trainee Merchandiser

Product Package Terms:

Name of Buyer.

Order Quantity.

Delivery Date.

Size and Color Break Down.

Fabric GSM (Specifying percentages)

Knitting pattern

Fabric GSM

Measurement sheet with pictorial description

Stitching detail

Details of Folding and Finishing Accessories

Details of printing

Details of washing

Order execution:

Buyer Searching

Tech-pack Received

Photograph of style.

Style name and number

Fabric details

Trims and accessories details.

Graded spec/ PAF

Construction details.

Washing method

Consumption:

The familiar formula for consumption is used to have the consumption of different parts of garments. The formula is:

(Length + Allowance) * (Width + Allowance) *Number of Parts /Fabric Cut able Width /36 *Number of Garments+ Wastage in Percent (%) = Results in Yards.

There is a system of fabric consumption in SGL with the regular marker which is mentioned below:

Costing & Pricing

Fabric is the biggest component of any garment costing. Merchandiser takes formal commitments from fabrics suppliers while taking price quotes regarding finished width of fabric, shrinkage, elongation etc.

Group provides all trims and accessories price giving by buyer. Buyer communicates directly with suppliers to give price. By adding washing cost, test cost, CM of garments, buying house commission merchandiser prepares the price of the garment. Standard Group performs the CM costing by doing costing system of SMS (Standard Minute Value).

Costing & Pricing

Price Offering: A buyer always gives a target price of the garment and factory should cope with the price as per as possible.

Negotiation: Buyers do not have much time to haggle back and forth and bring down the prices to acceptable levels. Standard Group tries to quote the right price in one shot and to make it accurate.

Buy Chart Received: Buyer ensures the factory by giving a buy chart for confirmation of the order. In buy, chat buyer depicts how many styles he is going to give in one season the number of garments, the color of garments, LIC for which countries garment will go.