What is the difference between a Fashion Buyer and a Merchandiser?

Are you interested in the role of a fashion buyer or merchandiser but you are not sure which is best for you? When first entering the fashion industry, many find themselves wondering and questioning what is the difference between these two closely related roles.

What Is The Difference Between A Fashion Buyer And A Merchandiser?”

Fashion buying and merchandising are two careers that go hand in hand together. If you are finding it hard to get the difference between these two roles it’s because, in reality, these roles could change or better interchange their job titles from one company to the other. Let me explain better: it could be that the responsibilities of a Buyer in Gucci might be the same as the Merchandising in Alexander McQueen. Or that in smaller brands the two roles are merged into one. In this article, we will cover both roles so you can understand the difference. 

Both roles can expect high levels of responsibility to work together with the same end goal: deliver product ranges to meet the consumers’ needs. These two are a mix of creative and analytical roles in fashion. They play with clothes but always make decisions based on numbers and analysis (hence why Excel is a must to know if you want to get into one of these two roles. The new Excel for Fashion online course is in fact perfect if you want to get this role and learn Excel applied to fashion) with a mix of gut feeling too. They need to know what will be the future trends and predict what consumers are going to buy and wear in the following seasons. 

What Is A Fashion Buyer?”

Let’s begin with the role of the Fashion Buyer.

To explain the role of a buyer we will do a practical example. When you enter into a store of a brand and you see that there are some pieces of a collection over others, well this is not a casualty. There is a person who decides which pieces of the collection are stocked in each store and this is the fashion buyer.

So, primarily what can you expect from a fashion buyer? Buying in fashion often entails identifying the latest styles and suitable items (bags, shoes, women’s or men’s collections, accessories….) to purchase for the stores you are in charge of within your company or brand: for example, you might work for Louis Vuitton as a womenswear buyer for all stores in the UK, therefore you would have to be knowledgeable on your consumer for each store in your region and know what to stock there.

It is common for fashion buyers to have their own niche or be assigned to product areas within their role. If you work in a retail store you might be in charge of sneakers. But if you work for a brand you might manage clothing and accessories. A buyer is basically responsible for choosing all the garments or accessories within their product area that will be available in stores for consumers to purchase each season.

Responsibilities can significantly change from company type

Working for a department store or multi-brand stores like Harrods, Asos, or Selfridges to a single brand such as Zara or Dior, can be a very different experience. You can go from buying brands to buying a single collection for one single brand. 

In order to make these important buying decisions, a buyer needs to research and analyze the latest fashion trends and purchase behaviors to make logical choices. However, they also need to think creatively to predict trends and trust their gut. A combination of creativity and logical thinking is backed up with previous evidence. A Fashion Buyer must understand the consumer of the company they work for in order to select the right products based on their age, location, and purchase behaviors.

They will also travel to trade shows, showroom appointments, and fashion shows to discover new fashion designers or trends. Or meet with current designers to place and discuss orders. It is the buyer’s responsibility to build connections with clothing suppliers, negotiate prices, and form agreements on payments while organizing the purchase. Often afterward, a buyer will then need to oversee the deliveries and stock levels of each store. This is repeated each season with the main goal of selling in mind because fashion is a business after all.

What Is A Merchandiser?”

What can we expect to see at the core of a Merchandising role? 

First, you should know that there are two main merchandising roles: the retail merchandiser and the collection merchandiser (even though they are often both simply called Merchandisers you need to know the differences).

Collection Merchandiser

Let’s begin with the Collection Merchandiser. As the one who crucially oversees the whole process of the development of the collection, a collection merchandiser works with designers to even help select fabrics and colors, and the suppliers the company will work with, offering the guidelines of the collection to the design team. A Merchandiser also needs trend forecasting skills as a buyer does. They need to be able to analyze past sales and trends while predicting what customers will want in the future, so they can create a collection plan that offers the guidelines of what needs to be included in the next collection to sell (more coats or dresses? what colors should be used for the collections?).

Although fashion is a creative industry, it is also a business and even design decisions need guidance based on numbers because the product has to sell. If the new collection will have more pants than skirts it’s not just a decision of the creative director or the design teams. It’s because the Merchandisers have made their analysis of trends and past sales. And have determined that these are the categories to focus on for the next season in order to ensure profitability. Other responsibilities can include deciding price targets, reviewing garment samples, working with marketing and package design teams to develop product messages and packaging, and providing regional teams with product knowledge. 

Retail Merchandiser

A Retail Merchandiser instead takes care of ensuring the commercial and financial viability of a garment or product in-store, to ensure stock is flowing and is available where it will best sell.  

As you could probably tell now, the retail merchandiser role is indeed very much similar to the role of the fashion buyer. That’s in fact where the confusion between the two roles happens. Many times companies don’t make the difference between a collection merchandiser and a retail merchandiser when they open a job. They just simply advertise a new position as a Merchandiser. And if it’s indeed a retail Merchandiser, it’s very much similar to the role of the Fashion Buyer. That’s why if you want to work as a fashion buyer you can keep an eye open on merchandising positions and vice versa.

Read carefully the job description before applying so you’ll know exactly what to expect from that position and the responsibilities. 

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