Kirsten was still off Ill this week tonsillitis so I completed a few jobs for Nathan which included creating an excel sheet to show the markdowns clearly to be sent to the stores so they had a record.

On Friday Kirsten returned to work. She called me over once she had had a chance to catch up on work and I was looking forward to her acknowledging the fact I had been able to complete the reports for the trade meeting. She acknowledged I had been able to compile the reports but she just picked at a few small bits I had done wrong and did not even mention anything about me having completed the reports with just having been shown once and under the pressure of finding out she was Ill.

I know that I would not get any praise for doing any work as I am there to learn but I felt really deflated that I worked so hard on the Monday to get the reports done and it was not even acknowledged how hard I had worked.

Monday - Today Kirtsen was off I'll and when I came in Nathan the Buying/Merchandising manager asked if I knew how to put together the reporting. Last week I went through the tasks with Kirsten and made notes along the way so I recalled the notes and worked as hard as I could to get the reports ready. As Kirsten had only been through the reports the once with me I felt the pressure to get the reports completed in time but I worked my butt off to get the reports done in time for the trade meeting and print off the packs. Unfortunately Nathan did not know how to update most of the reports so I could ask for help even if I needed to.

I managed to get the majority of the pack completed for the meeting and afterwards I felt a great sense of achievement that my hard work had paid off.

In the meeting it was brought up that the Northshore Boot has been returned quite a lot as faulty goods and the stitching and sole are coming apart. The decision was made to leave the Northshore Boot in store but to add them into the markdown to clear the stock they had left.

Thursday – went up to design to be a helping hand. I assisted design by listing the exact measurements for the sample knitwear hats they had received and got to use a really interesting device used for measuring the circumference of the hats. I was also able to use my illustrator skills to help them change the animal logo label shown on the hat in one of their designs. (illustrator design document on e-mail)

Friday – went up to e-commerce in the afternoon to assist with validating on the online shop. I began by arranging the clothing so that as a customer all the *New Arrival* clothing was placed at the top and forefront so it’s the first thing visible when clicking on a tab.

I then had to check through every item to check that if it had other colour ways that they were showing under ‘also available in’ on the site. If the links were not connected properly I then had to update the site and make sure markers were within the site formatting to recognise other colour ways.
Lastly I checked the Zoom function within each picture. If this was not working it meant downloading the picture again from the Asset Bank – a online source where all the animal pictures are kept. I then head to re-attach the image to the page and update it to make sure the zoom took effect.

My 3rd Week: at Animal:

Best sellers done on Monday – Downloaded the top 10 reports from the online reports system for Retail by value and Retail by Units. The online system used does not allow me to access the Etail report. I have had to contact I.T to be-able to gain access to all reports as a temp for the meantime Kirsten will download the report so I could access the report for the top 10 Etail. On each of the reports the first column of the top 10 all comes through as without a value for TW sales and TW-1 so it is my job to re-enter the formula so this information is shown correct.

On a Monday I download and complete the retail top 10 by value first and once the sheet is done All, Men’s and Women’s top 10's are then picked by me from the samples area and didplayed on a rail ready for the meeting. These are picked and shown in the meeting to get a better understanding of what works for Animal and what each week the customers are buying.

Tues – Met with Kirsten and discussed what I would like to get out of my placement and what jobs she would like me to take on. Discussed about me teaching me how to collate the information for reporting on a Monday and putting the trade pack together for the trade meeting. As Kirsten is going away on holiday throughout my placement for 3 weeks the aim is to have me knowledgeable on the processes for reporting by this time.

Wednesday - Today Kirsten sat down with me and she began running through the different reports that I need to learn. The first report we ran through is the Bits for Monday report which is a report that looks over the margin percentage met that week. It is important to do this report first as the information for other reporting.
The rest of the reports ran in this order.
Bestsellers pictures - as I have mentioned these are the picture sheets showing the amount of sales for the top 10 of each product and are displaying in categories.
Branded Sales Summery - this is a summery of the sales made for the different brands at Animal. Currently there is a jewellery concession Icon and the camera concession GoPro.

Colour Story Summery - this is a break down of the different colour stories found in store and how they are doing for sales in each colour story.
Daily Sales - this is a review over the previous weeks daily sales which is narrowed down into stores and then there is a second Daily sales sheet that is the prediction of the week completed by Nathan.
Category Summery - this is a break down of the categories and then broke down even further to each product type and its an overview of how each category are performing.
Department sales by store, Department sales by store TW-LW-LY & Colour story sales by store - dept sales by store is a break down of sales by store, dep sales by store TW-LW-LY is a comparison against LW sales and LY sales and colour story sales by store is a percentage break down the colour stories in store.
Graph forward sheet - this is always worked to a week in advance as it is a forward sheet to predict the next weeks sales trend.
Weather Sheet -  this a review of the weather for the week so the team can determine if the weather may have an impact on footfall.

This is a video of the showroom. This is where the buy takes place for each season. When this happens the showroom is very full and it is visually merchandised so that when completing the buy you can really see the strength of a colour story.

On Wednesday I was back at Animal and I had my usual middle of the week tasks of entering the Cat Summery information into the WSSI's.

On Thursday I got to take part in a buying and merchandising meeting (add info from placement report)
In the meeting I suggested was in the Teen Marketing for the new Flux range they are creating that an idea would be to put small but catchy stickers in store windows to say something along the lines of 'New Flux Range'. Nikki then explained to me that unfortunately any ideas they have including the one I suggested are not possible as Ronald the owner of the umbrella of companies Animal falls into has the final say on a decision, however he does not work with any of the areas in Animal or as a team. He makes his decisions on what he thinks best rather than drawing upon the knowledge of his staff.
After the meeting along with Kirsten I drew up the meeting notes and sent out the notes to the retail team with their initials next to each item for those that will be completing the task. When I working in project management at Liverpool Victoria I had to write up meeting notes like this so this was something I had done previously.

On Friday I got to visit the production team and assist them for the day. I was assigned the task to log all the style codes for the designs for AW12 collection on a system call Quest. Once the codes have been entered the images and codes are sent to be made into a line book so all departments have a book of reference of all they styles and when completing a buy they have got a clear visual of the collection.

This Monday and Tuesday I was at University taking part in the think tank project with the second years. It was really interesting working with the second years. They are a year I have not worked with previously so I do not know any of the students and it was interesting to get to know them and how they work. I felt it was a really beneficial experience being a third year as I felt our different experiences really helped to create different ideas. All of our different skills came together well to create the think tank book and I felt I also learnt new skills from their own experiences.

First week at Animal has gone well, there is a lot for me to learn and in the process I think I am going to find out a lot about myself.

This week has all been about me getting back into the swing of things and Kirsten and I learning how each other like to do things. As I have been at animal previously I think I came into the placement expecting to remember some of the jobs as I have done previously. Although I have remembered many of the jobs I have been a bit careless with some of the tasks trying to finish them quick and efficiently. The mistakes were only small and a case not taking enough time to double check and I am slowly learning that accuracy is even more important when working in Merchandising.

So my first day went a little like this.....

Things have changed a bit since I was last at Animal....unfortunately earlier this year there were company redundancies being made and Abi the buyer I reported to the last time I was here was one of the members of staff to be made redundant. Whilst on placement I will be reporting to Kirsten Porter the Buyer/Merchandiser, I have worked with her previously when I was at Animal but I never really had much to do with her and we have never really chatted all that much so I was nervous to see how the relationship between us will be. I know that I am quite a vivacious chatty person however I am also hard-working and I hope that I can still bring a sense of myself to the job with professionalism.

My first role of the day was to download the Retail Top 10 from the previous week and format the information, change the layout and include the missing pictures so this could be fed to the business. I then had to go to the samples area and on a rail display the overall top 10, men's top 10 and women's top 10. The information on the top 10 is included in a pack that is reviewed at the trade meeting every monday between the retail staff, the sales manager and the area manager. At this meeting we also review the product itself that has made it into the top 10 to help understand the customers better and for the area manager to understand what stock may need to be brought forward in store to help sales on other items.

It is no shock to me that Animal is not doing as well as previous years with the redundancies they have made in the last year. In the trade meeting today week 39 was revieved and they were -37% LFLon last years sales. It was also mentioned in the meeting that they are down -25% on the year and that the forcast is that this will continue for the last quarter.

Starting my three month placement at Animal today and I am really looking forward to learning more about working in a Buying and Merchandising department and the skills to compile Merchandising reports.

I have been working at Animal on and off since last September when I undertook work experience for a two week period. Since then I have pestered them every free time I have to be able to come in and build up my portfolio of experience.

As I am going to be at Animal this time for three months I am particularly excited to be able to take on some responsibility and to gain more experience in Merchandising as this is a particular area I am interested in pursuing as a job.