Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
A definition of fashion 2
The growth of fashion retailing 2
Fashion retailing and profit 3
Fashion retailing and marketing 4
Fashion retailers and society 4
Is fashion buying a glamorous job? 5
Buyers past and present 6
The development of the fashion buyer 6
Fashion buying and merchandise management – a warning! 8
1 The roles of the fashion buyer and garment technologist 9
Buying and merchandising 9
Terminology 9
Structures 10
The buying office structure model 10
The buying team 10
The role and responsibilities of a buyer 13
Negotiation skills 18
Garment technology 22
The need for integration between buying and technology 24
2 The role of merchandising 26
Definitions 26
A background to merchandising 26
The changing structures of merchandising 27
The merchandiser’s response to change 29
Main areas of merchandising management activity 29
The role and responsibilities of the merchandiser 30
The demand for merchandisers 34
The key merchandising competencies 34
Assistant merchandiser/assistant planner/senior allocator 36
Merchandising assistant/allocator/distributor 36
The future for merchandising 37
Applying for fashion buying and merchandising positions 37
3 Fashion design 39
Definitions 39
The role of a fashion designer 39
The key tasks of a designer 42
What is a successful fashion design? 44
Defining the contribution of fashion design 45
Benefits for customers 45
Designing benefits into fashion garments 48
Fashion trends 51
Tapping into the changing external environment 51
Technological innovations in fibres and fabrics 53
Fashion forecasting 54
The importance of shows 57
Lead-times 57
The sequence of trade and fashion shows 58
4 Market planning for fashion retailing 61
The importance of marketing 61
The marketing mix 61
Marketing within fashion retailing 63
Defining customers 64
What is a season? 68
Fashion seasons and user occasions 68
Modern seasonal trading 69
Market positioning 70
What is a range? 72
Price points 73
Product options 74
Strategic development 76
5 Buying and the law 79
Contracts with suppliers 79
Copyright 84
Pricing 85
Labelling 86
Fitness for purpose and satisfactory quality 88
Refunds 88
6 Merchandise planning 90
The importance of planning 90
Planning and profitability 90
The problems of planning in detail 91
The importance of the merchandiser in planning 93
The importance of historic sales patterns 94
Creating the initial seasonal sales plan 95
The importance of growth and Like for Like (LFL) growth 95
Sales planning and the fashion business 96
Some final thoughts on the WSSI 112
7 Sourcing and supply chain management 114
Sourcing defined 114
What needs to be sourced? 114
Different ways of buying a garment 115
An historical perspective 116
The buyer/supplier relationship 118
A move towards international sourcing 119
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/Multi-Fibre
Agreement (MFA) 120
General sourcing issues 121
Foreign buying 123
The changing supplier base 125
Supply chain management 127
Changes resulting from supply chain management 134
Measuring performance 137
The benefits of supply chain management 138
8 Stock management and distribution 139
Definitions 139
Fitting the number of lines to the business 139
The range plan and initial allocations 140
Rigid control versus flexibility – the dilemma of overall stock
management 147
The delivery schedule 148
The importance of the DC 152
Final comments on stock management and distribution 155
9 Retail formats and visual merchandising 156
The ever-changing face of fashion retailing 156
The changing high street 161
A review of changing fashion retail formats 164
Mail order and Internet buying – a retail format or not? 168
Changing consumer expectations and the shopping experience 169
Fashion retailing – a fast-changing vista 171
10 Future trends in buying and merchandising 174
Background 174
The changing impact of IT on fashion retailing 174
The impact of new manufacturing techniques 175
The fashion buyer of the future 176
The fashion merchandiser of the future 178
Likely future technological impacts on the consumer 179
Other types of fashion retail competition 180
Glossary of terms 182
Further reading 199
Index 200
Preface
The idea behind this book emerged from the authors’ need for a suitable textbook on fashion buying and merchandising management to support their lecturing and course development at The London College of Fashion. With the increasing interest among students in higher education studying fashion-related subjects, the need for such a textbook became obvious. Tim Jackson and David Shaw, having both been previously employed in the fashion business, were surprised to find a dearth of European literature on the area of fashion buying and merchandising management.
This book will be of practical interest to all types of fashion and business students, especially those undertaking fashion design, fashion retailing, fashion management or fashion product-related courses. For those already employed in the fashion business, it is envisaged that it will widen and deepen their knowledge base, as well as support both individual and corporate career development programmes. It will also give the general fashion-interested reader a clear insight into these most important aspects of the fashion industry. Using their own original teaching materials, and with the support of many current practitioners within the fashion trade, the authors set out to write this first clearly structured textbook on the subject. All material contained within this text, other than where specifically referenced, comes from original research conducted by the authors in conjunction with major fashion retailing organisations based in the United Kingdom.
Significant primary research has been undertaken with middle and senior management across a wide spectrum of fashion businesses. In-depth interviews and documentary evidence provided the substantive details. A great deal of information contained in this book is not accessible within the public domain. The unique and mainly uncharted subject matter of this book has meant that most of the material used in the text is original. Unlike most textbooks, there has been little cross-referencing to other academic texts. The authors felt that this is a rather unique approach to the writing of a text book, and therefore must take full responsibility for any omissions that may exist. This work makes an original contribution to the field of knowledge in this area by presenting and synthesising many hitherto unpublished conceptual frameworks.
We would like personally to thank all those people who have helped make the writing of this book possible. The majority we have listed below in alphabetical order, although there are some contributors who requested to remain unnamed. Many are current practitioners in the trade who gave up their valuable spare time to help with the project. We would also thank all our lifelong associates within the industry for helping us along the fashion pathway. To all readers, we hope that you find this book both interesting and helpful. A glossary of terms has been included at the back of this book for quick reference.