Roles and Responsibilities of Retail Merchandiser in Apparel Industry

Roles and Responsibilities of Retail Merchandiser in Apparel  

Mahima Nand
Asst. Editor Textile Merchandising
Assistant Professor, Amity University
Research Scholar in Sustainable fashion
National Institute of Fashion Technology
New Delhi – 110 016, India
Email: mahima.nand@nift.ac.in

Retailing:

Retailing is the sale of goods or commodities in small quantities directly to consumers. Retailing is one area of the broader term, e-commerce. Retailing is buying and selling both goods and consumer services. With a greater number of educated and literate consumers entering the economy and market, the need for reading the pulse of the consumers has become very essential.

Retailer:

A business or person that sells goods to the consumer, as opposed to a wholesaler or supplier, who normally sell their goods to another business. A retailer is a company that buys products from a manufacturer or wholesaler and sells them to end users or customers. In a sense, a retailer is an intermediary or middleman that customers use to get products from the manufacturers.

Major Steps of Retailer:

The steps of the retailer are as following-

Retailers Create Value in below Ways

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Provide an Assortment for Products and Services

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Breaking Bulk

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Holding Inventory

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Providing Services

The Characteristics of a Retailer:

1. In the entire distribution chain, a retailer is considered to be the final link, who deals directly with the customer.
2. A retailer purchases in bulk from the wholesalers and sells the products to the customers in small quantities.
3. A retailer essentially maintains a variety of merchandise.
   

   The Characteristics of a Retailer

Major Job responsibilities a Retailer:

1. A retailer performs the dual functions of buying and assembling of goods
2. The retailers perform the functions of warehousing and storing.
3. The primary function of a retailer is selling the products to the customers for which various techniques or business practices are being adopted by the retailer to achieve the strategic goals.
4. The prime focus of a retailer is on maximizing customer satisfaction by delivering quality products and services both on cash as well as credit basis.
5. A retailer performs the crucial function of grading for all those goods which at times are either left ungraded by the wholesalers or manufacturers so that the customers readily accept the goods.