Reference no: EM132187773

Question: (Merchandise Management and Pricing)

You will have been exposed to the spectrum of financial, merchandising, and pricing options available to a retail merchant. You should be able to plan an excellent overall merchandising strategy for your store.

1. Remind me of the name of your business and tell me where you plan to open it.

2. From the text and any other sources, explain the merchandising strategy you plan to adopt. Choose an assortment strategy from those in the text. How wide and how deep will your product line be in terms of satisfying your target customer base's needs for your category of products?

3. What specific brands do you plan to carry in each of your product categories? Why will those brands appeal to your target customer?

4. How basic versus how innovative do you plan to be in merchandising?

5. How risky is your merchandising strategy and what are its disadvantages/

6. Describe how you would design the inside of the store, including the walking/shopping paths, the clustering of products, the themes, the signage, the ambiance, and any store atmospherics that you plan to add (pictures, music, etc).

7. If you want, you can show me your store's name and the major signage in the actual colors and fonts that you would use (you can blow them up in size and actually design the signage in MS Word or in PowerPoint). Show me the colors that would be used in creating the atmospherics of the business.

8. Who (demographically) would you would hire as your sales employees? How would you train them?

9. Describe your pricing philosophy for the store in general and for your major brands in some detail based on the principles and options in the pricing chapter of your text.

(Your Promotion Campaign)

Now that you have been exposed to nearly the entire spectrum of promotion strategies available to a retail merchant, you should be able to plan an excellent overall marketing campaign for your store.

Design a really appealing promotional campaign to launch your business. Using your book as well as your good sense, explain to me where you would advertise, how you would advertise, what PR and event sponsorship activities you would engage in.

Go ahead and mock up any newspaper or billboard advertising, including copy for the ads. You can use a graphics package, snips from the Internet, and so on. What will your main them be in your advertising message?

What kind of radio stations would you use for advertising (if any)? What would you emphasize in the ads? What would you say in the copy?

What local television shows would you use for advertising (if any)? What would you emphasize in the ads? What would you say in the copy? Who would be on the ads?

Go ahead and design a social media campaign to get the word out about your business. How would you use Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even Foursquare to promote your business? Would you consider Groupon or some other pricing promotion to start, or do you feel that might affect how people will think of your launch and your business?

Are there any other promotional opportunities you would try to take advantage of in launching your store?

Your major brands are likely to offer co-op advertising opportunities. Discuss what it would take for you to take advantage of those opportunities in your launch.