Computer Applications in Merchandise Planning

Paper Code: 
MRM 326
Credits: 
4
Contact Hours: 
60.00
Max. Marks: 
100.00
Objective: 

Paper has been designed such that it acquaints the students with the merchandise planning through which retailers can manage their inventory management, customer loyalty programs and accounting features.

10.00
Unit I: 
Introduction

Introduction to Excel: Toolbar, Status Bar, Themes and style gallaries, floating mini formatting bar, resizable formula bar, enhanced sorting and filtering, working on a worksheet.
Excel Formulas: writing a formula, simple formula, complex formulas and the order of operations, formula adding.

13.00
Unit II: 
Retail & Sales Planning

Retail Planning: Retail organization structure, planning levels- corporate level plans, division level plans, functional level plans, department plans, merchandise planning.
Sales Planning: Developing sales projections, planning a total season’s sales, planning distributions of a total season’s sales.
Inventory Management: Stockturn, planning a beginning-of-month inventory, end-of- month inventories.

13.00
Unit III: 
Planning reductions & Purchases

Planning reductions: Markdowns, employee discounts, shrinkage, planning reductions.
Planning purchases: Purpose of planning purchases, open-to-buy.

12.00
Unit IV: 
Planning markups & Cost Values

Planning markups: Calculation and expression of markups, using markup percent to calculate prices, types of markup.
Cost Values: Retail method of inventory, calculations required for the retail method of inventory valuation, total merchandise handled, cumulative markup and cost complement, total retail reductions, ending inventory retail and cost values.

12.00
Unit V: 
Gross Margins

Calculating gross margin, gross margin return on inventory investment (GMROI), evaluating acceptable GMROIs.

Essential Readings: 

• Rosetta S. LaFleur, Merchandise Planning Workbook
• Martin. Hansen, Klinger and Beth, “Mastering Excel 2000”, BPB Publications, 2012