The responsibilities of a retail merchandise manager include buying finished goods from the manufacturer or wholesaler. Hence the merchandise managers should be careful in selecting the products; they should make sure the products will be sold and that they meet quality requirements. Managers should also be careful that they do not buy too much of non-selling goods and two few of best-selling goods.
When it comes to online retailing, an online merchandising manager plays an important role in the growth and expansion of a company through e-commerce. Managers are responsible for bringing new goods into an online e-retail environment, displaying these goods in the e-retail websites, writing the descriptions about the products, making changes in the merchandising copy for new and existing products in these websites, and deciding compatible rate plans for the displayed products. They are also responsible for providing day-to-day quality assurance of all the products displayed on the website and giving new product announcement memos for distributing the products to internal stakeholders online.
Online merchandising managers will be using rich analytical tools and information technology to improve sales and maintain a good relationship with customers. In addition to this, they will also be responsible for directly managing several staff members who are working in an e-commerce environment of the company like email marketing campaigns and internal search efforts.
Online merchandising managers have to work with the marketing, creative, quality assurance, product marketing, and catalog designing teams in order to safeguard customer requirements and to give a clear online display of the products to be sold. They should also review the website traffic and should know how many users have viewed the products in the website and try to customize the website to encourage the viewing of these sites.
How does one become a good online merchandise manager?
To become a good online merchandise manager, you should have a flair for selling. This position requires heavy interaction with customers as well as maintaining a good relationship with them. You should be a person who has the ability to build a business online. You should have a working knowledge of the Internet in order to display the products and know the customer requirements through the product views and the site traffic. You should also have good analytical skills, product knowledge, and multi-tasking capabilities. You need to be a good team player and have good decision-making skills.
The presentation of a product on your website is very important in order to guide a user to access your site. This is improves the visibility or appearance of your product by attracting the user towards it. This is very essential because in an online world, you should take the full advantage of the space available; it is precious, and grabbing the user’s attention makes a great impact on the selling. You should create a list of items in a price range to guide the users who are price conscious. You can also leave a customer request form on your site to help customers define what exactly they need.
The contents of the Web page should be dynamic and should define the product clearly. It is important to build associations between two items dynamically in order to help the users find a similar product if customers are not satisfied with the present product. You can give a list of products in the same price range of different brands of products in order to help the visitors find the right product they need.
User experience plays a huge role in online marketing and we should use search technologies to their full extent to make a user view your site. You should be able to give customers a good experience while they are browsing your website.
You can resell the products to a user who has abandoned your product, who can be found through the site, by giving him or her a special offer. You can try sending an email to a user who has abandoned your product by presenting your product with new offers and discounts. You can also send a list of similar products with a lower price range and with better features. You can also send a list of competing products of different brands.
You can try to give a view of the complementary items and accessories associated with the products already purchased by the customer. For example, if a customer purchases a television set, you can give a list of DVD players for them to choose from, and if a customer purchases a mobile phone, you can give them a list of mobile accessories like chargers, batteries, and mobile phone pouches to choose from.
Online retailing provides you with a great career opportunity in many parts of the world. With the growth of information technology and the Internet, e-commerce is a growing field which has a lot of scope to play in the coming future. A master’s degree in retail management is provided by many institutions and is helpful in providing candidates with good retail management skills and techniques.
