Business- session 2

The objective of today’s class was to understand buying and range planning. It started off the with the explanation of who a buyer is and what is buying in the business world. It made me understand how important it is to be a buyer since they have to observe trends, news, etc. and handle the buying side of the business. Then we taught how to make a range plan. We were explained that for a good range plan, one needs to focus on the trend forecasting, different clothes, styles, fabrics, also focusing on customer profiles, competitor behaviour, etc. We were also briefed about the four important Ps of buying – Product, promotion, price and place.

Then we started off with the group activities. We were asked to select a brand from a given list and make a rough range plan for the same. We were asked to look at their websites and write down different types of products the brand will sell. Then we were taught about a visual range plan. A visual range plan has three levels – Core product, fashion product & leading edge product. I also learned about the two different range plan models – The pyramid model and the diamond model. Then we continued our brand research in terms of a range plan and we were asked to answer a few range plan questions about the brand we selected. Further more we were asked to create a range plan with different deigns for sunglasses. It was a very fun and interesting class and I learned a lot.