 Now we are going to discuss about merchandising plan. Normally a retailer prepares a comprehensive plan which starts with gathering the information and then which ends up with the evaluation part. So there are actually eight steps that leads to this merchandising plan. Let me discuss with you quickly one by one. So this process of implementing the merchandising plan has the first step which is gathering the information. So what retailers do first of all in before making any plan he has to gather some information and then after gathering this information he need to select and interact with the merchandising sources. So moving to the third step then what he will do will be evaluating all these things. So evaluation will come after evaluation this stage of negotiation will come. So negotiation with the suppliers for example it is XYZ product so you are going to negotiate with it. Then after negotiation we will move to the fifth step. Which step is that you have to give the concluding purchases so that the retailer should know what are the agreements finalized and then now what are the merchandise they are going to receive. So of course then the next step is receiving the inventories, receiving the merchandising and then stocking them of the merchandise. After that the next step is the seventh step which is the reordering level. Reordering once the stock you have received now at what point of time you are going to reorder that. And eighth point which is the last part of the process is revaluation and once you revaluate everything again you go to step number one you gather the data and so and so evaluation negotiation receiving the merchandise and then again revaluation. This is the continuous process of merchandising plan. So first of all let me discuss with you point number one which is gathering the information. So when once we discuss about the gathering of information so it is gathered normally about the target market needs and prospective supplier so you have actually two things in your mind. One is about what would be the target market and second from whom I am going to buy these products. So who would be my prospective suppliers? For example, if I have planned let's say in the beverages category so either I go to the suppliers I will cater if the suppliers are will be there which I am going to go for the negotiations and for the purchase and for the contracts. So for example if it is beverages so they will be supplier for soft drinks and they will be supplier for hot drinks. So then if there would be soft drinks then you can have of course then you can say okay I am going to talk to Pepsi. I am going to talk to Coca Cola. I am going to talk to Amrat Cola. I am going to talk to Park Cola. So there are not a lot of brands already available. So what you are going to do you will identify which areas which brands I should target considering my target market. If my target market is looking for Pepsi and Coke I will not go for other brands. If my target market is looking for Amrat Cola or Park Cola or some other local brands then I will not go for A brands because that is not as per the need of the target market. Then data about shopper needs can come from customers can come from suppliers can come from any other sources. So normally with target market data which you tell about customers you get the information from your suppliers. You also get the information from some research of the customers. You also get this information from your competitors. Once you visit competitors you see which profile of the customer which income group of the customer which gender and what income level of the customer is buying and what they are buying and then on the basis of it you get all these data and it will really help you to move to the next step which is we have already discussed in the process. So first step is gathering data about your target market and about your prospective suppliers. So about the target market you can easily get the data from your customers or your prospective customers your suppliers or your prospective suppliers also your competitors which is also one of the smart source of getting the information and then the social media the search engines will also tell you. Also some key personnel in the industry will always help in getting this information. So what our want book is normally helpful we call it a want slip in order to get this data from the about the customers and about the suppliers. So to acquire this information from the suppliers or from the about the customers what you need to do you need to arrange visits. So these visits are either done through the third party who is actually expert of gathering this information or through your own staff which is normally useful also but again because the people know it that this person are associated to X company and this person are associated to Y company so normally it is challenging in getting this information. So normally the best practice is that you get all this information through the third party outsourced. So this is an example of shopping competition report which is actually you get once you visit your competitor the competition and not the first competition you can visit your multiple competition then you can identify this whatsoever you are looking for. So what you look for actually you have this kind of one example of the report which will tell which model you are going to search search which product you are going to check what is the description of that particular product what is the price of that particular product so first competitor price the second competitor price and then store recommended price care buy recommended price care so all these things all this information and then what are the items seen at our competitor store which we should carry also must have recommendations because by visiting the competitor you will get to know that the competitor is focusing on few items so what are the priority assortment you will also get to know from this competition shopping report while getting the step number one of gathering the information so actually once you get the right information of course you will have the right assortment in your store