he Way of Smart Apparel Merchandising

Muhammad Nurul Alam

Secretary General
Apparel Merchandiser Club of Bangladesh Ltd (AMCB),
Senior Merchandiser | Asmara BD Pvt. Ltd. | Dhaka | Bangladesh
Cell: +8801930540035
E-mail : alam@asmarabd.com

Introduction:
Do you know what is the working hour for a merchandiser in Bangladesh.
Believe or not merchandisers in Bangladesh are working more than 13-14
hours as regular job and some time much more. Always they are busy with
hundreds of work schedule but nothing can be completed within office hour.
So they have to stay in work place up-to late night. You can’t say this is only
inefficiency of their profession because most of the time they are over loaded.
The owners are having a cost minimizing tendency so they hire a garment
merchandiser instead of two or more without considering the demand of
work load. As a result a merchandiser always fail to enjoy their regular life and
gets tired. They loss their innovative force and feel exhausted in older years.
We often see merchandiser who aged beyond 45-50 either loss their job or stay
in the organization as a good for nothing. Owners don’t want to pay higher
salary for him though they already have taken valuable energy, time & work
force in early age. This is really shocking that now they feel you are not to be
used. Yes, right now we have to think how can take the best from our life
period. Whatever the age we should have to keep energy and not to be
exhausted. We can think for us from today and prepare a new deal for your
career. To make easy and to be smarter apparel merchandiser in our way of
working please let us do something different. Today we are going to discuss
how you can manage your thousands of job in a limited period of hours and
can keep maximum energy.
 F
ig: Smart apparel merchandising

1) Make a list of all your job:

This is very important what you are doing to keep it in your daily schedule. It
would be better to make schedule 1st daily than weekly and finally monthly.
Why this is important to do list? First of all we are human being. So this is not
possible to keep everything in our mind and to do the thing in priority basis.
Usually a Merchandiser has to work through lots of stress as well as
difficulties. For which this is not surprising if you see he is forgetting to do
some most important task that should have to perform in first priority. The
second thing is – when we see thousands of task that we have to perform
within a very short period of time our nerves gets week. We feel exhausted and
fatigue. So by the making schedule we can easily prioritize your task and get
the most important and urgent thing.

The below diagram will help everyone to do list in the work priority. This may
take little time to make your habit with the method but believe me the method
is really effective.

Urgent Not Urgent

Important 1. Fabric booking 1. Recape meeting with senior

 2. Yarn procurement 2. Production up-date

3. Price for new query 3. Bulk Lot shade approval

4. PP sample submission 4. Factory visit & get the production

status

Not Important 1. File & Sample organizing 1. New product collection

2. System Up-date 2. Develop product knowledge

3. Price review 3. Knowing up-date product status of

other customer

2) Don’t put task for tomorrow:

Just keep in mind that tomorrow never come. If you are thinking today is for
relax and tomorrow will be your busy day that would be unrealistic . Actually it
does not happen because tomorrow you will see new task has added to do & in
this way task will be more. One day without doing your important task means
you are going to burden yourself for tomorrow. So whatever you think that
should have be done today from your task priority list, do it immediately.
Never wait for tomorrow.

3) Check double/Triple which is mathematical:

Usually an apparel merchandiser works in a rush movement so sometimes
it is not possible to do all the mathematical task in cool mind. Suppose you are
going to book fabric or yarn. Here you have to calculate some figure to get the
fabric amount that can be used for bulk. But for the all rush movement you
made little mistake & proceeded for procurement. Your delivery time may be
very short so without any revision of your booking hand over it to supplier &
finally when the fabric in-housed it was identified what mistake you have done
earlier during fabric booking. May be you mistake in color name or
fabrication is wrong. Instead of 90/10 cotton/elastane you received fabric in
100% cotton. This is due to you worked in an old work order sheet where
fabric was booked in 100% cotton & in the new sheet fabrication was not
changed. The mistake is very little but outcome is devastating. To save time
you did not give a cross check on the sheet & now all of your production
schedule has gone to drain. This is really measurable when you will see your
fabric is in-housed but cannot meet delivery date. Now again book the fabric
newly & shipped the goods by air due to you missed delivery date. Actually this
would not happen if you are careful & taking extra time give revision twice or
triple. If you can take help from your colleague to see the booking as second
party. This will help you to avoid extra hassle & to utilize your time properly.
Here you can keep some key for cross check. cross check means the figure that
should be off course changed in new booking.

For fabric booking check the below:

 Fabric composition.
 Fabric construction.
 Fabric color.
 Fabric width.
 Finally fabric quality.

4) Don’t miss any mail:

A single mail can change total output. If you are not properly look into your
mail & work through of it you may miss some important information. So read
your every single mail & share the mail with all the relevant party. Don’t keep
it in your box only. If you have some mail that you should give answer please
keep it in red mark so that it will not go out of your track.

5) Don’t do a task twice:

This is actually relevant to point no 3. Take extra time to do anything but don’t
think you will do it twice or 2nd time you will get the opportunity to do it
again. Suppose you are in great rush hour to submit sample, giving mail
repeatedly to factory to submit the sample in certain date along with lots of
phone call. Finally received it but factory made mistake to follow earlier
comments what buyer has given. That means the sample is rejected & is not ok
to send buyer. Again the sample is made following the comments but it was
late one week. So all your production plan got delayed because of not to
submit the sample due date. Actually from beginning you could avoid all the
delay & wrong thing. If you could take just extra 15 minutes to check the
change that buyer want in the earlier comment or before stitching you could
visit factory & check everything that sample is going in right way it would help
you to save time & energy. Take extra minute to do anything.

You may also like: Step by Step Knit Garments Merchandising: A

Beginner’s Guide

5) Do extra work just one day:

In your ‘to do list’ you got some task that has to be done by this week but you
are engaged so much in some important meeting so could not able to work on
weekly schedule. Now what can you do? Use only one day to work extra hour
in the week. Never think to do it every day. You can work extra hour at the last
working day of a week so that the next day you can do relax & enjoy family. So
a day for a week can be your extra hour to finish pending task. This will help
you to minimize your work load.

6) Make a good relation with everyone to get job done early:

This is said that everyone is king in his own work place. May be the person is a
lab in charge. As job routine he is bound to do what are all your requirement
because owner assigned him to do job what merchandiser demand in related
to lab issue. But this is also true he keeps schedule in his every day to do list as
per queue. So you cannot ask for lab dip just in a day where as he has
hundreds of lab making in the schedule. Here if you have good relation with
the person it will be easy to get lab dip though you are not in the queue. So
make a good relation to all the department even a person who is in a worker
level. Never underestimate any one. Respect all to get respect from every one.

7) Utilize down time:

Usually success comes from the time which is not usually counted by the
commners. Because to do extra work there are no alternative way except
utilizing down time. Down time means – the time what you are just doing
nothing or doing one more job simultaneously. Suppose you are just stucked
in the traffic jam which is very common in our city life. It is often seen people
are just seating in the jam and trying to blame the system. But if you want to
use your down time, this can be an opportunity for you. Take journal or book
& start reading. That means all of your time can be used properly. On the other
hand you can use down time in different way. May be you are having lunch.
This may take 15 minutes to finish. During your lunch time you can listen
radio news in your mobile. This will help you to get up-date information about
what is happening around you. Your busy life will not stop you to be up-dated
in a new day.

8) Keep proper tracking whatever your are doing:

We are human being. So sometime this is not possible to keep everything in
our memory. In the merchandising no one can you say everything is in
tracking unless he follows some basic rules. The basic rules of keeping track is
‘put down notes’ in your excel sheet or note book. Make a excel sheet & put all
your information whatever you receive every day. Put the date on the stuff
what you receive from buyer and what you send to buyer. Keep same
information on the submitted items to avoid any kinds of confusion between
you & buyer. Keep your sample / swatch in a place where anything may not be
lost. Make sure to keep separately all your important items to be understood
by everyone or to get it in your absence.

You can follow below rules to keep tracking:

 Put date on everything.

 Up-date & review your excel sheet every day.
 Keep hard copy of all your important mail. Because some time you may
not be in net service when the information is required.
 Put your excel saved in your draft mail to find the data available incase
computer is got effected by the harmful virus.
 Don’t forget to send a mail to any consignee whenever you are sending
sample /swatch.
9) Keep all approval in hand:
Don’t miss any of your approval that received from buyer. Suppose fabric
quality, sample or trims whatever comments on submission please keep in
proper way so that it will not loss. If you have several submission on particular
item that sent to buyer make sure to keep date & comment for each
submission. This will help you not to be haphazard among the all submission.

10) Don’t miss to put anything on mailing correspondence:

Some time you may feel unnecessary to put things in the mail whatever
discussion you did in phone or verbal communication with someone. In reality
this is very important & never delay to put the content you discussed in a
written document /mail to prove the conversation. Suppose a trim supplier
confirmed you in a particular date to deliver the item over the phone. As you
feel the commitment is definitely will be met so did not put the conversation in
mail. But in the due date you get the supplier denied to deliver the item &
ignored his commitment. So if you could keep the commitment in a written
document it would be easier to hold him. Believe me this is most effective to
make easy your job, keeping things in mail .

11) Keep clean your desk:

A merchandiser has to do hundreds of job in a day so this is quite natural if his
desk gets occupied by lots of stuff like paper, swatch, trims etc. Every day new
items come to you & your surrounding is seeming a little store of fabric,
sample & with others thing. You feel over loaded as your desk is overloaded by
working stuff. How can you clean your desk to make free from all kinds dizzy
materials? This is really challenging for you rather than your daily job. Some
time we feel keeping things on desk is not a problem & this is actually to get
the things in hand. Believe me if your boss or others want to see anything in
your obscene from the desk they might be puzzled & confused what to take &
what to not take. So use only 30 minutes to keep clean your desk & put all the
stuff in particular folder so that anyone can find any important item. This will
make your job easy. Remember ‘The true competition lies is not what we do,
but how we do it’.

12) Take suggestion if you are in trouble:

The universal truth is – two head is better than one head. That means if you
are trying to do something counsel with other so that you can work more
efficiently with less error. Never think you are the perfect one & no need to
take suggestion from others. In other way this is called – cheer leader. Cheer
leader is your boss, co-worker, friend so If you want to be in track & to do the
correctly must discuss with fellow people. Definitely this will ease your job.

13) Filing and updating:

A merchandiser means lots of file and documents, so maintaining file for the
each order and keeping the necessary stuff is very important. Actually this is
little similar to the point ‘Keep clean your desk’. However this is specifically to
put the thing in file properly. How your file will look? Where to keep it? What
name can be given to each file? There are lots of issue that should have to take
in consideration if are really interested to be a smarter merchandiser. To do
your task in smart way you need to think about your file. Suppose where to
keep it? Always try to keep your important file close to your hand so that you
might not be haphazardly looking for your file when you need.

Here some suggestion how to keep file for smart apparel

merchandising:

 Put a name for your file in bold letter.

 Put all the information on top of the file, example – style name, PO no,
Qty, and a garment sketch.
 Your file should be clean & need to keep all the paper in a chronological
way.
 For easy understanding you can use divider to keep separate the subject
matter.
 Use folder to keep different submission, off course don’t forget to write
date.
 Use metal cliff so that the file can be use for long time.
 If you receive revised PO please make sure to keep it in file and keep a
cross mark on old PO.
 Never remove any paper from your file, if Pos are revised keep date on old
file & write on top of it why this is changed.