Luxury Lexicon 23 terms
Merchandising terms
How buyers and merchandisers plan ranges, present collections and read sales figures.
A
- Allocation
- Distributing available products among stores, markets or channels according to a plan or demand.
- Assortment planning
- Deciding which products and variants a retailer will offer for a market, store or sales channel.
D
- Deadstock
- Deadstock is inventory that remains unsold or material left unused from an earlier production run.
- Demand planning
- Estimating future customer demand to guide purchasing, production and stock decisions.
- Direct to consumer
- Selling products directly to the people who use them, rather than through a separate retailer.
F
- FMCG
- Fast-moving consumer goods: products sold frequently and usually used or replaced quickly.
G
- Gross margin
- The share of revenue remaining after the cost of goods sold has been deducted.
M
- Markdown
- A reduction from a product’s previous selling price.
- Merchandising
- Planning which products to offer, in what quantities and at what price, and how to present them for sale.
O
- Open-to-buy
- The remaining inventory purchasing budget for a period, based on planned sales, stock and existing commitments.
P
- Planogram
- A diagram specifying where products should be placed on a fixture or shelf.
- POSM
- Point-of-sale materials: displays and promotional materials used where products are sold.
- Pre-fall / pre-spring
- Collections offered ahead of the main autumn/winter and spring/summer seasons, often to extend a brand’s seasonal range.
R
- Range planning
- Planning the mix of products in a collection or range, including their roles, quantities and price points.
- Ready-to-wear
- Ready-to-wear is clothing made in standard sizes and offered for sale as finished garments.
S
- Sell-in
- Sales from a brand or supplier to a retailer or distributor, before the product is sold to the final customer.
- Sell-out
- In commercial reporting, sales from a retailer to the final customer.
- Sell-through
- Sell-through is the proportion of available stock sold over a stated period.
- Showroom
- A space where products are presented for sale: to trade buyers placing wholesale orders, or to clients in a retail store.
- SKU
- Stock keeping unit: an internal identifier for a particular product variant, such as one size and colour.
T
- Trade marketing
- Marketing activity with retailers and distributors to support a product’s visibility and sales through their channels.
V
- Visual merchandising
- Visual merchandising is the arrangement of products and displays to help customers see how a collection fits together.
W
- Wholesale
- Selling products to retailers or other businesses that will resell them.