What is fashion Merchandising?

What exactly is fashion merchandising?

• Like how is the work? What do you do? Do you travel a lot? Who do you work with? How is the pay?

• Answer:

  What is Fashion Merchandising All About? Every great boutique or department store needs a Wizard of Oz—someone behind the curtain making everything appear as impressive as possible—someone deciding to stock ruby slippers because they're the next big thing. Fashion merchandising experts accomplish tasks like these on a regular basis. Fashion merchandising requires a blend of fashion sense and business expertise. Style alone won't yield a successful career in this field. Staying ahead of the fashion curve is a feat involving both art and science. Strategy and marketing know-how are an integral part of fashion merchandising. Fashion Merchandising Tasks As a fashion merchandiser, your job is to connect fashion with consumers. To reach that goal, you may do a variety of tasks, including the following: - Attending fashion shows - Buying fashions - Negotiating with suppliers and manufacturers - Managing retail outlets - Setting up store displays - Advertising and marketing Skills Needed Forecasting Ability - While more methodical than fortune telling, fashion merchandising does require forecasting ability. A thorough knowledge of past fashion trends and an awareness of current industry developments will serve you well in a fashion merchandising career. Analytical Ability - Problem solving and analytical ability also come in handy in this field. A good sense of style obviously helps you; however, you must also determine how things fit into a budget and whether they meet the functional needs of consumers. Other criteria may also influence your fashion merchandising decisions, so you will need to be able to analyze a complex set of issues and stand behind your choices. Communication Skills - Fashion merchandising also requires good communication skills. From negotiating with manufacturers to getting your marketing message out to customers, there is ample opportunity to exercise your powers of communication in the fashion merchandising field.