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by Surefront on Apr 17, 2025 4:34:17 PM
The Complete Guide to Visual Buying & Merchandising: Chapter 2 (3rd Edition)
Table of Contents
- What a Buyer Does
- Meet Mia Cortez, Senior Buyer
- Monday: Managing Performance and Moving Fast
- Tuesday: Learning, Planning, and Finding Gaps
- Wednesday: Pitch Meetings and Real-Time Decisions
- The Power of Visual Context
- From Mental Load to Confident Calls
- Further Reading
What a Buyer Really Does
If you ask someone what a retail buyer does, you might hear: "They pick the products." While that’s not wrong, it barely scratches the surface.
Retail buyers are strategists, negotiators, analysts, merchandisers, and storytellers - all at once. They manage millions in inventory and margins, align with marketing calendars, and ensure the customer always sees the right product at the right time.
This blog dives into the day-to-day of one buyer - Mia Cortez - and how her work changes when she finally has tools that support the way she thinks.
Meet Mia Cortez, Senior Buyer
Mia is a senior buyer for a fast-fashion brand that drops new collections every six weeks. Her responsibilities span multiple categories, hundreds of SKUs, and a team of assistants, planners, and vendors.
She’s great at what she does. But the tools she’s been given? They slow her down.
That’s because Mia works visually. She remembers patterns, color stories, vendor presentations, and fit details. But the systems she uses break her flow:
- Product images stored in shared drives
- Pricing in spreadsheets
- Sales data in dashboards disconnected from products
To keep up, Mia prints out photos, marks up line sheets by hand, and rebuilds her own tools just to stay sharp.
Until now.
Monday: Managing Performance and Moving Fast
Monday mornings start with sales performance.
Mia opens her dashboard and filters to the previous week. But this time, she doesn’t see just numbers - she sees the products themselves. In a visual grid, she spots what moved fast, what’s stalled, and what’s surprising.
She flags 6 SKUs that beat expectations. One of them is a ruched blouse she didn’t even plan to reorder - but seeing it alongside the others, she realizes the silhouette is trending. She drops a comment, loops in her planner, and sends a note to the vendor. All in one platform.
That small win sets the tone for the week: fast decisions, in context.
Tuesday: Learning, Planning, and Finding Gaps
Tuesdays are for mid-season check-ins and future line planning.
Mia pulls up the next season’s concept board and compares it to what’s working now. She filters her visual assortment by trend tag and sees where she’s under-assorted in novelty knitwear. She needs more texture, more color pop.
She pulls saved views of competitor assortments and drops in past performers from her archive. With everything in front of her - past, present, and future - she builds a smarter buy.
Instead of asking, "What did I do last year?" Mia can now ask, "What worked, and how do I expand on it?"
Wednesday: Pitch Meetings and Real-Time Decisions
Wednesdays are vendor days. Mia meets with four key partners. Instead of flipping through look-books and PDFs, she reviews products in a live workspace.
One vendor shows a new capsule collection. She marks her top picks directly in the shared board, adds pricing, and compares each piece to her current assortment. She sees where it overlaps, where it fills a gap, and what needs negotiation.
By the end of the meeting, she’s confirmed 10 styles, asked for changes on 3, and declined the rest. The PO is nearly ready - all before lunch.
The Power of Visual Context
What’s changed for Mia isn’t just speed - it’s confidence.
Because she sees every product in visual context, she doesn’t second-guess herself. She’s not flipping between folders, files, and browser tabs trying to stitch the story together.
Her notes live next to each product. Her sales data is visual. Her vendor conversations are tracked in-platform.
Major brands are embracing similar strategies:
What’s changed for Mia isn’t just speed - it’s confidence.
Because she sees every product in visual context, she doesn’t second-guess herself. She’s not flipping between folders, files, and browser tabs trying to stitch the story together.
Her notes live next to each product. Her sales data is visual. Her vendor conversations are tracked in-platform.
That means less mental energy spent remembering - and more spent deciding.
From Mental Load to Confident Calls
Mia’s experience is one that many buyers will recognize. The workload hasn’t changed - but the way she works has.
By using a visual-first platform, she’s able to:
- Make faster calls without losing context
- Build seasonal assortments with data and intuition
- Cut down prep time for meetings
- Align more easily with planning, marketing, and suppliers
And the best part? She feels like she’s finally back in control of her day.
References
- shopPOPdisplays Why Visual Merchandising is Moving Upstream
- Forbes (2023) AI, Retail, and the Future of Buying
- Centric (2024) Product Concept to Replenishment for Fashion & Apparel
- McKinsey & Company (2024) How to do a retail Reset
Book a custom demo and explore how you can streamline your entire assortment planning and merchandising process.
Further Reading
Transforming Your Catalog with PIM
The Ultimate Guide to a Perfect Line Sheet
How to Choose and Implement the Best PLM Software
Tech Pack Templates That Drive Product Development
Transforming the Retail Buyer’s Workflow with a Visual-First Platform
The Complete Guide to Visual Merchandising & Assortment Planning
