ABSTRACT
The nature, role and coverage of retail merchandising are dimensions that are often a source of confusion for practitioners and researchers. In effect, this is because merchandising is a term that denotes two different, but related, aspects of retail management activity. Firstly, merchandising, or rather a merchandiser, can be understood as someone who has an important role to play in the buying function and who, in broad terms, typically has the responsibility for managing the financial dimensions of the process of product procurement and management. Secondly, a merchandiser, or more precisely, a visual merchandiser (the terms which will be used throughout this chapter to distinguish this role), refers to someone who is responsible for the visual presentation of products, and in many instances, the general aesthetics of the retail outlet. Both of these dimensions of merchandising will be delineated within this chapter.
