Merchandising and Retail Consumption

To enable students to:

• Appreciate the underpinning theories of merchandising, visual merchandising, point of sale and store design.
• Understand the history, diversity and implications of postmodern retail consumption

By the end of the module students will be able to:

1. Understand the factors influencing merchandising from retailer, supplier and customer perspectives.
2. Analyse objectively the use of retail space for merchandising purposes.
3. Appreciate the differences in visual merchandising techniques adopted across the retail sector.
4. Analyse a variety of written sources that debate elements of both retail and postmodern consumption.
5. Understand how today's consumer society evolved.

• Research in to defined areas of merchandising.
• Principles of store layout and design
• A review of current marketing activities and their influences on merchandising.
• Consideration for ongoing changes to product assortment.
• Stocking plans and stock management systems.
• An overview of retail and society
• The sociology of consumption.

Total Learner Hours: 200

Contact Hours: 48 consisting of lectures, presentations, group discussions, exercises.

Private and Directed Study 152 hours

Bocock (1993), Consumption, London: Routledge

Corrigan, P. (1997) The Sociology of Consumption. London: Sage

Miller, D. (1998), A Theory of Shopping, Cambridge: Blackwell Publisher

Varley, R. (2006) Retail Product Management. 2nd edition, London: Routledge