Merchandising: Pros and Cons of Merchandise Planning Methods

* You may suffer from a lack of buy-in from channel managers. “They may have been told a sales number to hit and may not agree that it’s even doable,” said Jackson.”So, actually executing a top-down approach may be problematic.”

Bottom-up Merchandise Planning

This type of assortment planning works best for companies that have common sales profiles across channels, a limited range of products, and new or refitted channels with little or no sales history, said Jackson. Advantages include the following: