Fast Track Retail Buying and Merchandising

The product is at the centre of the buying and merchandising business. In this introductory lesson to this section, we'll set the scene for the product perspective.

The product life cycle is a very important viewpoint to consider when thinking about a product. This lesson discusses the product life cycle.

At the beginning of the product life cycle, there's an important practice known as new product development. This is concerned with researching, designing and selling products in order to make market breakthroughs. In this lecture, we'll be discussing the "one-size-fits-all" idea of new product development.

By grouping products in specific ways, we are able to plan product management more efficiently. This lesson explains how products need to be grouped to make sense to buying and merchandising in the retail sector.

This is a continuation of the previous lecture on product groupings.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 2, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This is the introductory lesson to this section, where we'll set the scene for the supply chain perspective.

The sourcing model is a very common supply chain configuration used by many retail companies who source their own products with their own branding. In this lecture, we'll look at who the participants in the model are, but more generally what happens in the sourcing model.

This is a continuation of the previous lecture on the sourcing model.

In this lecture, we'll explain the workings of the full service model. This supply chain configuration is used for when you want to buy and sell third party products.

This lecture explains some miscellaneous concepts relevant to buying and merchandising like the critical path, the dynamics of stock (a.k.a. inventory), and a few others.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 3, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This is the introductory lesson to this section, where we'll set the scene for the people perspective.

This lecture identifies the primary teams of people who collaborate with one another to enable the buying and merchandising enterprise to come to life.

The organisational structure of buying and merchandising businesses varies from company to company. In this lecture, we'll explore a few concrete examples of organisational structures.

Roles and responsibilities are assigned at all levels of the organisational structure. In this lecture we'll consider the structure and describe the responsibilities held by the individuals operating within that structure.

In this lesson we'll explain the collective qualities and attributes of successful buyers, assistant buyers and buying admin assistants.

In this lesson we'll explain the collective qualities and attributes of successful merchandisers, assistant merchandisers and allocators.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 4, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This is the introductory lesson to this section, where we'll set the scene for the process perspective.

In this lesson, we'll bring together the various perspectives we've explored and explain how things work in terms of a timeline. We'll be calling that our "merchandise management roadmap".

This is a continuation of the previous lecture on the merchandise management roadmap.

This lecture covers the details of buying strategy planning.

This lecture covers the details of range planning a.k.a. assortment planning.

In this lesson, we'll use our knowledge of new product development and explain in more detail how the business process of product development is implemented.

Budget management in buying and merchandising breaks down into finer business processes, the main ones being sales forecasting and planning for Open-to-Buy (OTB), which we'll discuss in this lecture.

This lecture explains how stock (inventory) management is implemented in the buying and merchandising business.

Having a strategy for the correct pricing of products is highly important in retail. This lecture looks at the business process of planning the pricing architecture and the key considerations to bear in mind.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 5, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This is the introductory lesson to this section, where we'll set the scene for the technology perspective.

In this lecture, we'll explain the implications of some key enterprise systems you are very likely to encounter in buying and merchandising.

When you work in buying and merchandising you'll be working with data reports. In this lesson, we'll explore how a typical data architecture is set up for you to be able to pull data to create these reports.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 6, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This is the introductory lesson to this section, where we'll set the scene for the numerical and reporting perspective.

In this lecture, we'll go through some of the basic metrics used in merchandise planning like how to calculate margins, understand stock performance, etc.

This lecture explains an example of a simple critical path tracker and the core types of information that feed into the tracker.

This lecture explains an example of a simple WSSI and the core types of information that feed into the report.

This is the concluding lecture for Section 7, where we'll wrap up everything you've learnt in this section.

This bonus lecture provides an overview of e-commerce, from which online merchandising derives. In this lesson, we'll get to explain the core chunks of functionalities that make up an e-commerce platform.

There are several ongoing challenges and obstacles faced by retail companies as well as individuals who work in buying and merchandising. In this lecture, we'll discuss and reflect on some of these challenges.

This is the last lecture in this series, where we'll wrap up the course.

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