Areas of Fashion: Retailing, Marketing, Merchandising


The majority of people see a designer drawing a new clothing idea or a model strutting down a catwalk to display the newest creation when they think about fashion. Of course, the fashion industry would not exist without designers or models, but there are a lot of other fashion-related fields that are often overlooked. In actuality, many of the unseen fashion industry workers are just as crucial to the sector as the designers and models that we usually see.

The four main subfields of the fashion industry are retailing, marketing, and merchandising. Designers, pattern makers, and sketching assistants are just a few of the occupations in the design industry that produce, modify, or disassemble designs into their component elements. Employers in the manufacturing sector include those who make the accessories and clothing that other people have designed, including dressmakers, seamstresses, tailors, and textile workers.

Marketers, photographers, models, and stylists work in the marketing and promotion industry to assist designers present and sell their accessories and clothing to retailers. The field of retail sales encompasses positions like as buyers, merchandising planners, salespeople, and retail managers who acquire the designer’s accessories and apparel and then market it to the general public.

Fashion Retail

Retail is the industry that deals in acquiring clothing from producers and selling it to consumers. Three to six months prior to the buyer being able to purchase the clothing in-store, retailers make first purchases for resale. Retailers of fashion are establishments that carry clothing from different brands. To put it another way, this kind of company involves manufacturers selling their clothing to other retailers. By doing this, they avoid being in responsibility of providing them to customers. A business does not, however, only sell the clothing that it purchases from producers. When it comes to it, other crucial factors come into play.

For instance, it is the responsibility of these businesses to attract customers and pique their interest sufficiently to prompt a purchase. In other words, they are in some way in charge of marketing. Companies who don’t retail their own goods must sell those goods to retailers like boutiques, department stores, and online sales companies at wholesale costs. To find a good fit between the clients of the store and the items of the manufacturer, they use fashion shows, catalogues, and a sales force equipped with samples of the products. Ultimately, this practice also comes under the category of retail industry.

Fashion Marketing

Fashion marketing is the act of controlling the flow of merchandise with the aim of maximising a company’s sales and profitability, from the initial selection of designs to be made to the display of products to retail buyers. Understanding consumer desire and responding with the relevant products are essential for successful fashion marketing. Marketers inform designers and producers about the kind and quantity of things to be created through sales tracking data, media attention, focus groups, and other methods of gathering consumer preferences.

Therefore, marketers are in charge of determining the target market for a fashion company and reacting to their preferences. Both wholesale and retail levels of commerce involve marketing. Marketing also includes promotional actions like print and other media advertising at the wholesale as well as the retail levels. These actions are done to build brand recognition and reputation for a variety of traits like quality, affordability, or trendiness.

Fashion Merchandising

Merchandising, which aims to increase sales and profitability by persuading customers to buy a company’s items, is closely related to marketing. Selling the correct product, at the right price, at the right time and place, to the appropriate clients is the usual definition of the term “merchandising.” In order to make decisions about things like stocking appropriate merchandise in adequate but not excessive quantities, offering items for sale at enticing but still profitable prices, and discounting overstocked goods, fashion merchandisers must rely on marketers’ information about customer preferences.

Additionally, merchandising entails presenting products in an appealing and approachable way through the use of shop windows, in-store displays, and special promotional activities. Merchandising experts must be able to quickly order new supplies of the popular product in response to spikes in demand. For instance, an automated order for a given quantity of garments of a specific type and size to be delivered within a short period of time can be sent to a production facility in Shanghai by an inventory-tracking computer software in a department shop in London.

Relationship Between Retailing, Marketing and Merchandising

It is up to retail establishments to catch people’s attention and pique their interest enough to prompt a purchase. They are, in essence, in charge of marketing. In a retail setting, you might need to employ marketing to comprehend your customers and their preferences. When you do, you can develop strategies and techniques to help you get there. You can develop an emotional connection with them in this way. On the other hand, if you run a wholesale fashion company, all of these retail stores are your target market.

Your marketing initiatives must therefore concentrate on contacting these brands. Although merchandise is a form of marketing, it differs from it in that it aims to increase your company’s sales and profitability. It employs several neuro-marketing and psychological strategies to achieve this. In this approach, it can persuade clients to buy your business’s components. This is the relationship between these three key areas of fashion.

Conclusion

Finally, we must not overlook the importance of retailing and marketing merchandising to the fashion business. When showcasing new clothing or fashion items in their stores, many retail stores frequently use traditional marketing strategies to draw customers’ attention, such as magazines, newspapers, billboards, and others. But these kinds of customer-attracting retail, merchandising, and marketing strategies are being replaced by new, cutting-edge strategies every day.

Updated on: 03-Feb-2023

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