Stock management and distribution

Abstract

As explained in Chapter 2, the merchandising role has responsibility for, first, getting stock ‘into the business’ and then, secondly, for getting it ‘around the business’, in as effective and efficient way as possible. This chapter examines both stock management and distribution. In Chapter 6, we examined the stock flow into the business, mainly at an overall and category level. In many respects overall stock management can be viewed on two levels. First, the macro level looks at the value of stock in total to ensure that the department and/or business is not buying too much or too little stock that it has the potential to sell in its shops. Secondly, there is the need to control stock at the micro level, which looks at the number of units in stock by line, colour and size level by individual branch. This chapter deals mainly in a micro-detail level.