Merchandising: Pros and Cons of Merchandise Planning Methods

Top-down merchandise planning entails a process in which centralized decisions about product assortments are made by corporate-level executives. Meanwhile, bottom-up assortment planning is done by managers of individual channels projecting sales within their respective channels.

You’ll find advantages and disadvantages to each methodology, noted Joel Jackson, a senior consultant at Martec International, an Atlanta-based retail consulting firm. Understanding the pros and cons of each variation can help you decide which plan is best for your multichannel business, he said during the session”Best Practices in Merchandise and Assortment Planning” at the National Retail Federation Annual Conference, being held this week in New York City.