Developing a Merchandise Mix

It is essential to realize that a retailer, any retailer, survives by providing its customers not what it wants but what the customers want. This may not be a problem for discounting giants since they offer everything but it is a big issue for smaller independents. They must offer important value to their customers that would make the quality of their lives better. For the retailer this means survival and perhaps prosperity. The retailer has to perform a number of functions related to product and service assortment. The process is called merchandising. There are four key components of merchandising: buying, planning, managing, and controlling. These four components must lead to, above all, providing the store’s customers a highly desirable merchandise mix. This mix needs to be adjusted as the needs of the store’s target market customer’s change. In order to develop a desirable and adoptable merchandise mix, there must be a certain type of preplanning process, which is supported by an adjustment system. All of these activities are preceded by an effective buying plan.