Ch. 5 Merchandising Operations (TB)

Ch. 5 Merchandising Operations (TB)

1. Chapter Preview

   • Ch. 1-4 focused mostly on service companies
     • Lynk Software Services
     • Air Canada
     • Canada Post
     • College Pro Painters
     • Scotiabank
   • Frank & Oak
     • sells goods instead of performing services

2. Feature Story: A "Frank" Look at Tracking Inventory

   • Montreal, Quebec
   • Frank & Oak
     • young men's clothing and accessories retailer
     • started out in 2012 as a web-only store
   • had almost no goods to sell
     • Hicham Ratnani (co-founder): "In the first, I would say, two or three months, our biggest problem was that people would come to the site and we had no inventory"
   • created waiting lists for customers
     • pre-order items to receive when they were back in stock
     • Ratnani: "After a couple of weeks, we had about a quarter of a million dollars' worth of waiting lists"
   • most retailers would be doomed if they ran out of stock
     • Frank & Oak found that high demand showed that popularity was simply underestimated out of the starting gate
       • "It meant that the market was really there and people really wanted the product"
   • keeping track of inventory is key to the success of merchandisers
     • Frank & Oak designs its own products and has them custom-manufactured in China