Month in Online Merchandising : August

(Clockwise from top left) Ilcsi Apricot Gel Mask (from cultbeauty.co.uk) £30, Mango Textured Cotton Blend Dress £59.99, Ilcsi Sour Cherry and Blackthorn Gel Mask (from cultbeauty.co.uk) £30, bohemiadesign.co.uk Embossed Enamel Bowls from £8.95, A Lot on Her Plate recipe book £25

August is a slightly strange month. The run up to Christmas is extremely busy in retail, so you feel you should be taking some holiday now - it's sunny, it's the last time when you're really completely free to take time off, and you need to build up a reserve of energy for the months of September, October, November and December. And yet, a lot of people seem to take multiple, short breaks, maybe because, though comparatively it's less busy than September, it's not quiet - there are always meetings to attend, projects to work on, etc. August feels as if it's a month of coming and going.

In the midst of this transience, here's what I have planned:

- Some forecasting for seasonal offers/promotions - Halloween, Christmas, New Year...
- Making sure my pages chime with the tones of late summer - with the desire to picnic, or to dine al fresco, to cook with summer fruit and veg, and buy fresh flowers, to camp (at festivals, or somewhere more remote), to daytrip, to do implausible things like attend outdoor, nighttime film showings!
I'll be prioritising products that are practical for these sorts of activities, materials that are colourful, airy and light or hard and cooling.
- At the same time, trying to make certain pages more autumnal, with a focus on more muted colours, shades towards russets and plums, denser, cosier fabrics and so on. Items that are useful if you are lounging at home - reading, watching something, cooking - or if you are outdoors in slightly cooler, crisper weather, will be given more attention.
- Some competitive shopping and making a compendium of any interesting range presentation ideas I find.
- Throwing a launch party for a strategy I'm involved in communicating to my colleagues.

Hopefully, I'll manage to snatch enough time!

Well, have a great week!

Summer IS Coming

Hay Copenhague Barstool (designed by Ronan and Erwan Bourboullec) £206 from Haus, Stelton Cylinda Martini Mixer and Cocktail Shaker £69.95 and £119 from Occa Design, Uniqlo Supima Cotton Sweater £19.90, J.Crew Broken-In Chinos £75, Maison Francis Kurkdjian Zinc Globe Trotter Atomiser €85 (refils for €60) and Acqua Universalis 70ml €110, Acqua di Parma Ginepro di Sardegna 75ml and Deo Spray £54 and £27

So it feels as if I have been setting Seasonal Ideal Stock Levels constantly since the beginning of the year. As I've described before, sales patterns change at Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter and Father's Day, and you need to make sure the stock is in place by using special Seasonal IS levels.

But before July, August and September, I need to review the Standard IS levels. I'm working on this at the moment.

These are generally quite quiet months, with no events (like Valentine's or Mother's Day) to interrupt them. Local customers might go on holiday and be replaced by tourists with different purchasing preferences. And so to realise sales potential, and avoid overstocks, it's necessary to reset your Standard IS levels using last Summer's sales.

To do this, I will calculate the average weekly sales of each product in each store. If a store receives weekly orders and runs on three weeks of stock, I will set their IS level at three times their average weekly sales.

There are special-case products, of course: ones that sell infrequently but of which you need one or two on hand at all times; testers, samples and wrapping (I try to base my samples and testers on sales and my wrapping materials on consumption). But apart from that, it's pretty simple.

September is a small event in my calendar. In France, it's called the Rentrée. It's the time when you get back into everyday life, after your summer break. And some people like to buy themselves something - as a treat after they return to work, or as an inducement to work hard through the autumn/winter, or just because it's a fresh start. So I'll probably check the IS levels against September's sales, come the beginning of August, to make sure the stores won't be short of anything they need.

So this is how my year looks -

January to June - setting of standard IS levels, setting and re-setting of seasonal IS levels to meet the demands of shopping events such as Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter....

July to September - review of standard IS levels

October to December - setting of seasonal IS levels so that the stores are ready for Christmas.

With Father's Day, the last of my spring events, on the horizon, I decided to post a selection of men's merchandise. Have a great weekend!

Last month, we had a pretty important product launch. Now, there are many points at which you can come unstuck with a launch: there are the pre-series, testers or samples to be sent out, so stores can build up excitement and perhaps a waiting list; then the stock has to be in store in plenty of time - and calculating how much to send is far from easy; and then there's all the promotional material - window schemes, sampling supports, gwps...

Here are some of the things that informed my decision on how much stock to send:

- Previous launches and how much was sold in the first months.
 When considering historic launches, I though about whether they were singular or if we were launching several skus in one go, what price point the products came in at and how that might have affected sales, what size the products were, what category they fell in (body, fragrance, home fragrance, gift sets...), what their functional, olfactive, aesthetic etc. characteristics were...

- Feedback from the stores, the sales team, the press, etc.
 There's always enthusiam around a launch - over time, you get a feeling for just how much of this will translate into sales.

- The demands of window scheme and merchandising. For this, I looked at photos of windows from last year and estimated how many testers / actual product would be required.

In the end, I pulled figures for what each store had sold of earlier, similar launches. I then tweaked this to take into account their targets, how this particular launch differed from earlier ones, general feeling around the product and visual merchandising requirements...

I think that's a comprehensive list of what influenced my decisions.
 And the launch has gone well so far, so our preparation must have been comprehensive enough. Yay!


I realised last week that I've never posted any merchandise for men. As merchandising is at least 50/50 men to women, that seems a bit remiss. So I'll start making up for it straight away.

1978 501s Levi's Vintage Clothing £180, Patterned Cardigan Raf Simons £560, Weather Report Teatowels and Plate Marimekko £29.50 and £32, Cirro Mug and Tumbler LSA £36 and £45 for 4, Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado Kiehls £33, Clean & Shave Neville £22, Nourishing Moisturiser Perricone MD £62

I've just been assigned two new, exciting tasks.

First, I'm taking responsibility for replenishing our international warehouses. The principle is logical enough: we look at last year's monthly sales and produce a prediction for this year; as we start to receive sales figures, we tweek our forecast; then we send the warehouses a certain number of month's stock, plus a certain percentage of cover. There's a bit of pressure: it can take several months for sea-freights to reach far-away warehouses, so it's important nothing is forgotten or under-forecasted.

The second new duty is reporting on the inventory mix in each of these warehouses. We want to make the inventory more reflective of sales. This involves grouping the stock on hand according to certain attributes (e.g. products that are a certain category, that are in a certain band of sales ranks) and calculating the value of each group. Then we compare our findings to our sales figures and highlight areas of concern. Wholesale teams on the ground will try to tackle these issues and, if my replenishment is good, the inventory will be truer to the business.

So new year, new challenges. I'll have to manage my time well, but it feels good to stretch my merchandising wings!

Weather-wise, my February has been pretty grim. Here's the sort of outfit it made me want to wear: grey with little a beam of sunshine yellow.

Next Two-Part Shoes £30, Sacai Luck Sweater £255, Twig Harry Blanket £98, Bronte Pinstripe Blanket £85, Twig Jessie Blanket £98, French Connection Distressed Jeans £89, Shiseido Luminizing Satin Eye Colour £23.50, Poppy King Vesuvius Liquid Lipstick £22 (soon to be available from Space NK), Nars Larger Than Life Eyeliner £19

Christmas and the winter sales are hardly over and Valentine's day is already upon us!

The stores all have ample stock of the products presented in our February windows. I've looked at last year's sales and made doubly sure that their ideal stock levels (to which they are topped up each time they place an order) won't leave them exposed to stockouts before they receive their next order. And I've been consulting store managers - asking if there's anything they think might outperform.

So hopefully everything will go well - though the course of love never did run smooth, there are bound to be one or two misadventures.

Here's a selection of rose-scented and rosey-hued beauty products that should charm the most valentine's-averse. Serge Lutens' Sa magesté, la Rose is a lovely fresh soliflore, while La Fille de Berlin is a more peppery rose. The spectacular magenta of the latter makes it a wonderful gift to unwrap. £69 for 50ml from Liberty.

Scotch naturals produce water-based nail varnishes, with a wide selection of natural, floral colours, as well as some show stoppers. Atholl Brose (not very pink, but a gorgeous name) and Tartan Swizzler £14 from freshindulgence.com

Paris brand, Marinho, is also doing something quite exciting - with the purchase of a Mini M UV lamp, an undercoat and a varnish, you have the world of flawless, gel manicures at your finger tips. €145 for the lamp, €18 for the base and varnishes (here, La Favorite and Le QQ/First Class) from Le Bon Marche.

New to John Lewis, Japonesque - which dates back 25 years and is influenced by Kabui-theatre make-up - is an esoteric, exotic cosmetic brand. It gives exceptional texture, has super staying-power and each item comes in a unique container with beautiful hand-injected gel fascia. Their Velvet Touch Blush (£18, John Lewis) gives you real rosebud cheeks.

Well - have a lovely lead up to Valentine's.

I was a bit downcast at the beginning of the week because we hadn't seen a big increase in sales, and when I looked at the history, I really thought there would be one.

I'd studied the increase/decrease in sales per week this year and I'd compared both sales and rate of change in sales to last year.  Everything seemed to point to some good growth – our weekly figures were increasing, we were making ground on last year's sales in bigger and bigger strides and, in 2012, there was a big sales spike over the last few days of November/first few days of December.

I was doubly disappointed because a) the dazzling sales I predicted hadn't materialised and b) I'd been wrong (I don't think anyone's overly fond of being wrong!)

I was planning to look at some more history... when in doubt, more spreadsheets! And, on the Tuesday evening, I undertook a little competitive shopping – it's always good to understand feeling on the high street... Afterwards bought myself a cheer-up book (see below - I didn't ever read Eat Pray Love, I must admit, but this is getting great reviews and it looked like a good escape!)

Then on Wednesday the sales came, yay!

Good Cheer-Up Purchases

 

Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things £12.99; What Delilah Did Libellule Cushion Embroidery Kit £45; Santa Maria Novella Soave Water and Melograno Bath Salts; Rococo Mini Bee Bars (Rose and Orange & Geranium), £1.30

In my last post I described how, in early autumn, I put together a November and December forecast, per sku, per store. What remained was the getting the stock of to the stores.

We have stores of very different sizes. Some I send stock more regularly than others - if they have a decent storeroom, I send more, less often, to save on delivery.

Over time (quite a long time, truth be told!), the store managers and I have thrashed out an agreement on how much stock they should hold - their average sales for the period between their orders, plus a certain percentage we're both comfortable with.

So now I had to recalculate the levels of stock they should be holding on to, but instead of using average sales, substituting the units they were forecast to sell in November/December.

For each order we had scheduled, I used a combination of the November forecast, the December forecast and (for late October orders/end of December orders) average sales.

I'll be updating minimum stock levels in the point of sale system as we move through the next two months. Then, when orders are placed, the stores' current stock will be subtracted from their minimum stock and they'll be sent the difference.

Maybe next year I'll be forecasting with weekly specificity... though then there's be a risk that the sharp increase in sales when people start buying presents would come earlier and the stock wouldn't be ready. I'll have to ask what's best - what are your thoughts?

I try to get to work pretty early, particularly in the run up to Christmas. The French warehouse is an hour ahead of course, and I like to be there if they need to contact me.

 

Ruda Rings, Brazilwood and Vanadinite Ring; Nasomatto, Silver Musk £108; Bonne Maman, Confiture de Châtaignes à la Vanillee / L’Occitane, Thé Vert & Bigarade £49; Jiro Kamata, BI Necklaces; Bluebird Tea Co., Matcha teas from £15 / Annick Goutal, Ninfeo Mio €98 (approx. £85); Fortnum and Mason, Coronation Majestic Marmalade £6.95; Decadorn, Citrine Pendant £58

My morning routine keeps me going through the winter months - a bowl of porridge, a day-defining accessory and a stimulating-spritz fragrance.

I like to whisk some matcha into a little water at approx 80oC - this I stir into a cooling bowl of porridge and top with some blueberries, or nuts, or dried fruit - excellent if you're coming down with something and tasty too! A spoonful of marmalade (this one contains gold leaf) in the middle of your porridge is beautiful and delicious. When it's really cold and work's really high pressure, some creme de marron stirred through your oats is a great incentive to get up and out.

The mineral necklaces are by an amazing London brand called Decadorn. The others are by a Japanese designer working in Germany. The sustainable wooden rings are by a Brazilian one.
Silver Musk is by mysterious brand Nasomatto; Thé Verte et Bigarade is a calming concoction of green tea and bitter orange; Ninfeo Mio combines lemon, orange and figs, for some real zest in the morning.

In my next post, I'll describe the stocklevel checks I put in place, being a bit of a worrypot. Or perhaps I can tell you about a little work trip to Paris I'm on at the moment.

I'm being a bit brave, starting a new blog now.  The next couple of months are the busiest of year for me. At the same time, they're the most interesting, so hopefully I'll find time to record them.

I'm a merchandiser working in the beauty industry. I allocate out stock to our stores and our website warehouse and I analyse sales across the wholesale and direct channels. As with most jobs, there's a bit of sprawl, so I'm involved in some logistics and retail operations as well.

Last week, most of my stores received their first delivery based on their elevated Christmas stock levels. In this, my first post, I’m going to start by describing how this came about.

The first step was working out much we expect each store to take on each category of goods. To do this, we looked at last year's sales breakdown per category and how the retail business has been trending over the past few months. We're hoping to see some healthy growth.

Then, taking the percentage of last year's overall category sales represented by each sku and multiplying it by our category forecast, we predicted how much of each product each store would sell.

We had to consider whether sales of now-discontinued products would be made up by sales of similar products. New launches and the Christmas box sets were forecasted separately; for these we considered past launches, extrapolated sales-to-date and fed in the general feeling around the products. Pretty rigorous!

Having predicted sales by product by store for November and December, we had to work out how to achieve a good flow of stock into the stores. Now, this is the bit that makes you toss and turn at night. If you get it wrong, there'll be stockouts over Christmas. And then, if you're anything like me, you won't sleep for remorse, ever, ever again!

I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

So this is what I'd like to be spending my merchandiser's salary on this week. It's getting cold outside now and you need to think about protecting your hands – particularly if you're out watching fireworks, admiring the autumn leaves, etc.

(Clockwise from top left) Chill Hand Lotion 02, Karmameju, 349DKK - about £40 ; Tea and Oranges Hand Lotion, Emma Bridgewater, £12 ; Whisky and Water Hand Lotion, Noble Isle, £20 ; Personalised KeepCup from £7.80 ; Pom Pom Scarf, NW3 by Hobbs, £55 ; Chunky Mittens, Cos, £25 ; Silly Billy Nail Laquer, Butter, £12 ; Light Drizzle Nail Varnish, Topshop £6

Normally I swear by Neutrogena Norwegian Formula, but this year I'd also like to try Chill Hand Lotion for sensitive skin by Karmameju (very into Nordic beauty products at the moment). I'm interested in Noble Isle as a brand and Whisky & Water is an unusual fragrance – warming! Emma Bridgewater's Tea & Oranges Lotion sounds simply delicious.

Hope you’re looking after yourself this winter!