Do You Really Need a Merchandise Manager

- a merchandise concept statement, and

- visual cut-outs from your catalogs or others demonstrating products that are dead-on and those that are dead-wrong.

3. Once the product concepts are clear, your merchandise managers must consistently help buyers by, for example, working with marketing and circulation personnel regarding your customer base. Average customer demographics comprise a good starting point, but understanding the main two or three clusters of customers also is important. A buyer file usually isn’t made up of one homogeneous average customer. It’s usually comprised of three or more major pockets of customer groups.