Wear flair

You are the one thread that connects the entire gamut of activities from the beginning to end of a style purchase order. You have to elevate your role from being a mere post box, passing information and reporting facts and figures from one end to the other, to that of becoming a sole proprietor of your PO.” Bangalore-based trainer and independent consultant Anjuli Gopalakrishna’s Website sums up the expectations from a merchandiser, or apparel manager, in a world of stiff competition, strict deadlines and rapid change.

Many of these merchants virtually straddle continents to make good the orders. A trading agent or merchandiser sitting in India may be busy working on a US order for shirts which require cotton bought from Australia, woven in Pakistan, dyed and finished in Sri Lanka, and manufacured in Bangladesh.

Sugam Asani, who heads the menswear division at Benetton India, says, “We are the most important part of the back-end (of an apparel brand).” Merchandisers are highly paid in any apparel    brand, he says.

If you work for India operations of a foreign retail brand, your work may take you to the parent company’s headquarters, where you select seasonal ranges. All the items have to be customised according to Indian body sizes and only colours suiting Indian skin tones are taken. The local team develops its own range, too, which hits the market with its foreign-origin mates. The product details and quantities are then communicated to the production teams.

A major part of a merchant’s job is costing. “We suggest the MRP to the commercial team and the final price is decided in consultation with the merchandising team,” says Asani. As the work includes a lot of number-crunching, it might be helpful to read maths and accounting before getting into this field, suggests Gopalakrishna, who has more than a decade’s experience in the apparel industry and has worked in companies such as Li and Fung, Tommy Hilfiger India, and JC Penney Purchasing Corporation.

But it’s not just about buying, selling, crisis management, and price negotiations. Apparel managers need a creative eye as well. Says Asani, “Our work is 80 per cent managerial and 20 per cent creative, though this (ratio) varies from brand to brand.”

Says Darshan Bhat, founder of Creatnet Services, a link between Indian manufacturers and foreign clients for whom it handles designing, product development, sourcing and finished products, “It’s an interesting field, if you like it.” Moreover, top salaries are comparable to A-grade MBAs. However, the pay packages have slimmed down in the past two-three years, he says.

Indeed, India’s apparel and textile sectors suffered during the recent global economic trough. According to the Apparel Export Promotion Council, India’s garment exports were worth US$10.17 billion in 2008-09, with a market share of 2.99 per cent. But it faces tough competition from other Asian countries, including Sri Lanka and Vietnam — and was outstripped by Bangladesh in apparel exports last year. However, what holds promise is India’s evolving domestic market.

Author: HT Horizons

Date: 25th March, 2010

For further details about related courses and colleges please click below:

Related courses and colleges