Retailing of Garments in England Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Retailing of Garments in England - Assignment Example in part 2, a single product category will be selected along with a supplier. The proposed selling price, suggestions if any on changes in the annual trading plan, planned volume for each of its 13 periods, planned gross profit, the allocation and replenishment strategy etc will also be given. Introduction: There is an erroneous way of thinking among some mangers that the business of selling is more important than that of buying. In fact, buying is as important as the selling process because if an organization buys good that are not needed or too highly priced, the whole selling process would collapse and result in huge losses. This is especially true in high risk field as garments since fashions and tastes change unexpectedly. This report to the board of directors will show how the correct buying function can be adopted and also how to choose the correct supplier. Buying plan: As mentioned earlier, buying is a very serious activity and involves four steps namely "(1) the selection of kinds of goods, (2) the determination of quality or suitability, (3) the determination of quantities, and (4) the selection of sources of supply." (Beckman and Davidson 1967, P. 393). The company is actively engaged in retail sales of garment, hence what is required is the kind of garments that should be purchased. It is seen that the company has already prepared a sales target for the coming year and purchases be made depending on the targets and the stock of the item on hand. There would be need to diversify from this target and go for other types of garments since it could be risky. The quality expected from suppliers has also been established and should be used as a benchmark for selection of suppliers. It would not be advisable to go in for purchase of large quantities to reduce prices since the market is quite volatile. As for sources, the RLL Group already has a set of approved suppliers. Some suggestions as to choosing of suppliers will be given in the next section. Value analysis of the goods could be done and efforts can be made to increase functionality (for example, increasing number of pockets in jackets), but without increasing the purchase price. If possible the company can talk to its suppliers and see if an arrangement can be made in this regard. It would be better if the company can compute optimum order quantities (bearing risk factor of out of fashion stock in mind) to reduce cost. For this purpose, it should be ensured that the needs of all the 100 stores should be ordered at the same time. What is very important is that future trends in fashion and tastes be studied before ordering of each lot of goods. Merchandising plan: This is to ensure that purchases made are judiciously handled so that the company will not be straddled with unsold stock. It is imperative that a sales target be made and it is good that the company