Buying and Merchandising Consultant

Our Buying & Merchandising Consultant Learning Path offers a wide range of courses that can support you or your team’s professional development. Designed for merchandising consultants, business analysts, and project managers seeking more advanced training, our career paths help both learners and managers alike to map out expert-led training routes for themselves or their departments.

So, ready to advance?

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A Typical Buying & Merchandising Consultant Learning Path

Select each of the circles below to track your way through the Buying & Merchandising Consultant Learning Path.

Who Is This Learning Path for?

The Buying & Merchandising Consultant learning path has been curated to deepen your understanding of the B&M processes, making it perfect for those with foundational knowledge and experience in retail. 

As a result, it is ideal for those who have already completed the Retail Induction path or have equivalent experience and understanding. 

Learners who choose this path come to us from a range of backgrounds. Typically, they’ll have some merchandising experience already and will be looking to expand their knowledge or pivot more into a more senior consulting role. Alternatively, graduates also have a lot to gain from the consultancy and development training courses available.

Browse Our Buying and Merchandising Consultant Courses

At Martec, our e-learning classes are highly interactive, accompanied by exercises and tests to enhance the learning experience and develop the key skills that the retail industry requires. 

Our Courses

All of our distance learning courses can be completed in your own time, at your own pace. When it comes to courses on our Buying and Merchandising Consultant pathway, here are a few examples of the training classes you can expect:

	Retail Organization Structures Delves into the retail organizations and their structures, including departments and challenges.
	Buying & Merchandising Introduces the buying and merchandising function, explaining key principles and best practices like critical sales protocols.
	Merchandise & Assortment Planning Explores the merchandise and assortment process, discussing how learners can implement best practices.

Advanced Resources Available in Our WIKI

Within this learning path, you will find additional resources that are housed in our Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) - you must have a WIKI/EPSS subscription to access these. 

Some of the tools learners can tap into:

Not yet completed your retail induction? Check out our Retail Induction path first to ensure that you have the base knowledge needed for this particular learning path. 

What You Can Expect from Our Learning Paths

Martec International is a worldwide provider of consumer goods and retail training products and services. With over 40 years of industry experience, you can count on us to offer e-learning courses of the highest standard, having helped a broad range of retailers, firms, wholesalers, and other companies of all sizes. 

What Does a Career in Merchandising Involve?

A career in merchandising, no matter if that is a Buying and Merchandising Consultant or other retail role, can involve numerous responsibilities and duties that can make it a challenging but rewarding experience. 

Work Environment

At work, you will find yourself in a variety of environments, especially as you will likely be mixing both office/desk time and time on your feet. You might be required to travel to meet with suppliers, as well as visiting stores. 

As you can see, a career in merchandising is hardly repetitive, with day-to-day activities changing frequently.

Start Your Career Path Today with Martec International

Becoming a Buying & Merchandising Consultant is made more possible through our learning path. Designed to support those in senior roles to reach their maximum potential in B&M functions, it’s a win-win for employers who get their teams enrolled. 

If you would like to kickstart your path with our first-class training programs, simply get in touch.

The Skills You Gain

By studying this learning path, consultants will gain these skills:

1. Identify who in the organization owns which responsibilities, the challenges they face and who to consult with to gather the data required to plan a project and gather the necessary data.
2. Review the company financial reports to identify past sales trends, corresponding achieved margins, the inventory investment necessary, and be able to compare the analysis against company budgets and peer group retailers.
3. Calculate and analyze a wide variety of key performance indicators, compare them to other companies and industry norms and identify areas of the business needing improvement and successful areas that need sustaining.
4. Conduct store visits to the client’s stores and competitors to observe store operations and identify areas needing improvement.
5. Use the Quadrant Analysis tool to assess how the company’s IT systems to manage the buying, merchandising and trading operations compare with industry best practice and peer group retailers, thereby identifying potential for improvement.
6. The ability to develop demand forecasts and define demand forecasting processes.
7. The ability to determine initial allocations and future replenishment quantities and to be able to define the processes to do this.
8. Develop merchandise and assortment plans and specify the appropriate planning processes for the client.
9. Define the processes need to monitor weekly and monthly training performance, identify successes to be reinforced and weaknesses to be addressed.
10. Identify ways of exploiting omni-channel retailing to optimize business performance.
11. Quantify a business case including assessing the benefits of proposals and identifying the associated costs, so that a return on investment can be determined.