The Cube Life: Making Educated Guesses to How much and what the Public Wants

The past 2 weeks I have been working in the Merchandising Department at Calloway's. Last week I was working on projections for the Top 5 Indoor Ferns. I put together data for how much we are going to sell compared to last year, how much it is going to cost to buy, how much it will cost to ship, how much the Dallas stores will get, how much the Houston stores will get, where we will get the ferns, when will we have a sale and how much will we mark them down. I was able to put together charts and graphs that clearly showed what we expect to do next year. I also pulled together information for how to grow the ferns and what makes people want to buy them. I also learned about why we "book" some plants but not others. Some, you book because you can't just find a whole lot of them anywhere, so if we don't "Book" with a vendor, we won't have them in the quantities we need. Others, you can find good ones anywhere, so if you book them with a vendor, it makes it hard to take advantage of any specials a wholesaler might have. 

This week I have been working on introducing some new blueberry varieties to our stores. These varieties are supposed to pleasing to the eye and the stomach. It is interesting to see the differences between projecting a tried and true plant and a variety we have never had before. To project the introduction of new plants you need to look into sales data for other comparable varieties to see how the public responds to them. It is also helpful to see how all the varieties of that plant you carry do. So if we were introducing an abelia, we would look at how well we sold all our varieties of abelia. I have also been able to have more contact with vendors this week. It is sort of like starting from scratch for introducing new products. I have to find  vendors, think about how we can market them, how much to sell them for and when to put them on sale. I will say after working on this program, I have a serious blueberry craving. It is not easy to look at so many pictures of blueberries and not want the sweet, tang of fresh blueberries.

Today, I showed the director of merchandising my presentation thus far. He had a couple of pointers, but thought it was pretty good. I am now working on putting the final touches on my presentation. I will do my final presentation on July 25th, after I have completed all parts of the internship.