Merchandise Management

What is Merchandise Management?

It is a process by which a retailer offers the right quantity of the right merchandise in the right place at the right time and meets the company's financial goals. It helps to sense the current market trends and analyze past sales data, which then aid in making the appropriate adjustments. 

Forever21, being a foreign brand of fashion, its apparels will of course not match 100% to the trends in Singapore. For example, it is known that Forever21 launches its apparels season by season. Out of the 4 seasons, Winter is one which is not applicable in Singapore at all. Therefore, for every launch of the Winter season, the stores tend to not have as much winter clothing as they have in the other countries. For it is known that this form of apparels is not required in a country like Singapore. Hence, when it comes to determining the quantity of the apparels, this will be a factor taken into consideration.

Before ordering, Forever21 will also take a look at its past sales data to analyze the sales performance for a certain period of time for comparison. From there, they can predict the quantity demand so as to reduce the number of wastage and to prevent any shortage. 

Category Management

It is the process of managing a retail business with the objective of maximizing the sales and profits of a category.

Forever21 makes use of Category Management to help them further classify the various products together to aid customers in searching for what they want. 

For example, Forever21 categorized their basic apparels at the far back of the store, and they consist of sleeveless tops (tank tops/spaghetti straps), t-shirts, undergarments, as well as shorts. 

This form of categorization helps customers to easily locate what they want, and also aid the staff at Forever21 to show the customers the different categories of products and their locations.