DAILY TASKING: The Key To Running A Successful Retail Store

TASKING

Being a Visual Merchandiser is not an easy job to perform and things can quickly spiral out of control, this is where tasking comes into play. You may or may not be in charge of a team of people or it may just be you but tasking in either scenario is one of those necessary evils in the retail business. It’s one way of staying on top of things that are happening as well as something tangible which you can show your superiors and I would suggest  filing these taskings per month.

COMPETITIVE SHOPPING: Definition and Execution

COMPETITIVE SHOPPING: What It Is and It’s Importance

DEFINITION OF COMPETITIVE SHOPPING

Like the saying goes, ‘no man is an island’, so it is for Retail Management and Visual Merchandising. Whether you work in a Mall store or a Street store, you need to do competitive shopping to see marketing, merchandising and store layouts your direct and indirect competitors are doing. It’s always in your best interest to know whatever you can about stores in your vicinity as it’s a mean to an end to assist you and your retail store in making targets and budgets.

So now that we know what Competitive Shopping is, let’s look at how it’s done.

WHAT IS VISUAL MERCHANDISING? In A Nutshell...

 WHAT IS VISUAL MERCHANDISING?

Visual Merchandising, in a retail environment, is the more modern term for what was once called Window Dressers. Realising that these ‘window dressers were not only responsible for dressing windows but for everything you can literally see within the confines of the store, the name went through many changes.

In my years of personal experience my job description was a Display Artist, Visual Artist and finally Visual Merchandiser. The Visual Merchandiser name change also meant added responsibilities to the job, the most significant of these was the inclusion of merchandising the various product within their departments in the store.

WHO AM I? WINDOW DRESSER GURU OR VISUAL MERCHANDISER MAGICIAN?

WHO AM I?

I am a South African who has worked the retail industry for one of the biggest retail companies in the country. I have worked across most of the major metropolitan cities around the country including Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Having spent three months as a casual and learning about and working in, all the various departments of the store, I was employed permanently and my illustrious career in both retail and visual merchandising began.

I quickly developed my visual merchandising skill, working in two stores in the Eastern Cape,  three stores in the Western Cape and another two stores in Gauteng. During my career I assisted with the opening of several new stores, refurbished /
revamped four stores and also assisted the Regional wherever they needed me and moved from a Visual Merchandiser to Visual Merchandiser Manager.