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Savvy Shopping
| Article
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13855 |
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LIFE
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| Issue
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12 / 1988 |
1,752 Words |
| Author
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Michael Krondl
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The scene is familiar: Thousands of people are milling around you, laden with weights that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud, their frantic eyes searching for another item to add to their burden. You are assaulted on all sides by slickly groomed young men and women with vampire smiles who threaten to spray you with the noxious liquids they hold in little vials. You ride up and down endless escalators past miles of racks of the latest craze in skateboard wear that Junior simply can't do without—until two months from now, that is. Finally as you throw up your arms in despair, vowing never to repeat this experience, you find that you cannot get out—the escalators only go up. You must first pass through the ties-for-your-father-in-law department and then, just as you are about to see the light of day, you must make a final turn through the gold-chains-Aunt-Millie-can't-do-without department.
A nightmare vision of some deranged psychopath, you say? No, simply an average day at a major department store between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Yet would you still venture into this melee? Perhaps the best advice is not to. Do your Christmas shopping in June, or at least in October. Save your Christmas cheer for your nephew rather than wasting it on a surly salesperson at Bloomingdale's. But let's be realistic. Except for your neighbor down the street—who devotes the weeks before the holidays to baking tooth-chipping cookies from ancient family recipes—most of the rest of us shop when everyone else does. Thus it's a good idea to know how department stores operate, if only to give you confidence as you begin the awesome task of the modern consumer.
A store's image, whether it is "high-end" like Bergdorf Goodman or "low-end" like Woolworth's, and whether it's located in a shopping mall or on Fifth Avenue: All these factors determine what merchandise the store will stock and how it will be arranged, marketed, and advertised. But, in spite of distinct differences among stores, there are certain factors that remain the same.
Each store or chain of stores has a team of managers bearing titles such as "merchandise manager," or "senior vice-president" who decide what the store will market, as much as two years in advance.
Sometimes they are dead wrong. An eminent example of this was the decision to bring back the miniskirt. When miniskirts appeared on the racks at Bloomingdale's last year, nobody was interested.
The best possible deal
Once the management has decided the store's thrust for the coming seasons, the nuts and bolts of decision making are carried through by the store's buyers. These are people who will approach, say, Calvin Klein, and negotiate to buy a certain quantity of underwear. The buyers have to know their clientele in order to buy the best possible item. In fact, many decisions are made as much by the buyers as by the management.
The buyer is looking to get the best possible deal for the store. The store may get a discount if it is a particularly good customer of the vendor or if it buys in sufficient bulk. The buyer may also negotiate a contract that builds in advertising expenses. Thus the Calvin Klein company might agree to
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