Types and Roles of Visual Merchandiser in the Fashion Industry

Visual merchandiser:

Visual merchandiser is a person who applies his or her design skills that helps to promote the image, create eye-catching product displays and store layouts, and design to attract customers and encourage them to buy.

Visual merchandisers connected with current and future trends, and follow up business competitor’s activities, and also training the sales staff to get merchandising skills.

Fig: Visual merchandisers do their work

Visual merchandiser assemble marketing principles, get combine the knowledge about retail merchandising, and creativity to use the space and layout of the store to represent the store’s catalog in a right way. They are need to professional training to do the following task successfully.

In-store displays
Interactive displays
Mannequin styling
Point-of-sale displays
Posters
Price tickets
Promotional / seasonal displays
Shelving
Window installations

Types of visual merchandiser and their roles:

A visual merchandiser is a key person in the fashion industry who determines how a product is displayed to the public. Today in the fashion industry, there are three main types of visual merchandising roles are included. Every role is slightly different from other. Here the types are:

In-store visual merchandiser
Field visual merchandiser and
Head office display team.

1. In-store visual merchandiser:
In-store visual merchandisers are needed to have a real fair for layout and composition, consciousness about the retailers brand image, products and display techniques are combined with knowledge.

In-store visual merchandiser play some essential roles, these are following below:

They maintain all the in store visual displays
By analyzing the reports they maximizing commerciality
They will always do change monthly floor makeovers
Always maintaining product standards
Using space planning information

2. Field visual merchandiser:

Field visual merchandisers are to help and give guidance the retail stores of the fashion brands on all perspectives of visual merchandising like set guidelines, ensuring consistency and visual excellence across the brand. To move forward the fashion brand, the field visual merchandiser always inform to the district visual merchandising manager and area manager to discuss any identified chance, issues/ needs, put forward advice and agree actions.

Some roles of a field visual merchandiser are:

In retail store design area, they will drive and develop visual merchandising standards.
For the retail store, they highlight commercial visual merchandising opportunities.
Always maintain the fashion retailer’s brand strategy.
Some visual merchandising experience must be needed.

3. Head office display team:
Head office Creative/visual merchandiser starts their career as a creative assistant, moving to creative manager, and then moving to head of creative or visual merchandiser. Some store retailers do not have a head office display team, that’s why, marketing team maintain this responsibilities. But they are not enough creative as a display team. So, brand marketing manager try to recruit more creative candidate for this post.

Some roles of head office display team are:

Actually they are support and communicate between the buying and merchandising teams
Update knowledge about fashion trends, latest key trends, styles.
They should be able to put visual display packs together.
They will reserve latest visual display packs and old packs are leave from the store.
Get more knowledge about creativity.