INTRODUCTION TO THE ASSIGNMENT

$$ This assignment consists of ONE case study and

You work for a company that sells its products to major retailers across Africa and most of Europe. Your company

produces and packages various grocery store products that include pasta, dog food, sunflower oil and baby care products

among various other products. As the new marketing manager, you are thrown into the deep end and must manage a

new line of products that the company is introducing. This is a line of clothing and comfy living areas for dogs and other

house pets and as a manager, you are expected to handle all aspects of this projects working closely with other

departments in the organisation.

The company$$s main target for this product are upper middle class and professional people between ages $2535,$ mostly

women who live with their partners or by themselves. This means that your products will be mostly located in middle to

upper class areas populated with young graduates and professionals living in pet friendly flats, townhouses or homes.

As the marketing manager, demonstrate your knowledge by completing these tasks.

Before answering the following questions, research any retailers that provide similar products and services described in

the scenario and base your answers on this.Now that you have demonstrated your knowledge of consumer buying behaviour and the significance

thereof in terms of how you build long$-$term and loyal relationships with your customers, you need

think about how best you can appeal to them in a store, visually. Merchandising is a way in which you

can successfully differentiate and position yourself further in the marketplace and this will have

extensive implication for your firm$$s image, service levels, sales and profitability.

Develop a short merchandising strategy for the new line of products, keeping in mind and

demonstrating each of the following aspects and the long$-$term value this will have in customers$$

memories.

$$ Setting merchandising objectives;

$$ Visual merchandising tactics and their benefits;

$$ Visual merchandising tool or tools that would be more beneficial for this new line; and

$$ The success and failure factors, which you may encounter.

Section $6\mathrm{.}7$ of your Year $1$ study guide looks at merchandising in greater depth, this is a concept in

retail marketing to which you should be familiar. You may refer to it in answering this question, but it

is not compulsory that you do$.$ However, you are expected to show evidence of extra reading and

research.

Note: Consider concepts of conscious leadership, corporate social responsibility $($CSR$)$ and

environmental impact in your strategy.First develop your own strategy for the new line $,$then discuss those aspects they gave $4$ of them $,$then the conscious leadership and CSR$.$