Introducing Retail Buying and Merchandising Best Practice
This European footwear retailer wanted to centralise to one executive function in Europe and to introduce best practice buying and merchandising ways of working.
First Friday were asked to help design the new organisation and to implement the new buying and merchandising structure and ways of working.
This European footwear retailer with 500+ stores wanted to centralise to one executive function in Europe and to introduce best practice buying and merchandising ways of working.
First Friday were asked to help design the new organisation and to implement the new buying and merchandising structure and ways of working.
We developed a new organisational structure with a new consistent approach for planning, merchandising and trading and also developed the competencies for each role. We introduced a range of tools and techniques including WSSI’s, mark-down modelling, hierarchy structures, planning packs, assortment plans and line details. Concepts such as grading, weekly ways of working, trading calendars and branch merchandising structures were established to support development of a trading mentality.
The benefits included an established merchandising and trading team who were now skilled to support the business effectively and enabled the move from a regionally focused model towards European retailing, deriving budgets from coherent history and commercial expectations.