Visual Merchandising Internship - LOFT Outlet
This summer I was fortunate to secure a visual merchandising internship with LOFT Outlet at the Outlets of Des Moines in Altoona, Iowa. LOFT Outlet is a brand under the parent company ANN, INC., owned by Ascena Retail Group, which includes LOFT, Ann Taylor, Ann Taylor Factory, and Lou & Grey. The national women’s retailer offers apparel, shoes, and accessories. As an intern, I had the opportunity to work on several merchandising projects and gain relevant experience in retail management and customer service. I carried out daily retail responsibilities including maintaining store appearance, processing shipments, and facilitating positive customer interactions. I also had the privilege of contributing to larger visual merchandising projects that allowed me to develop my skill set and expand my knowledge of the field. Some of the projects I worked on included merchandising the floor sets, creating window and in-store displays, and tracking and influencing weekly sales performance.
Project 1
Each month, our store is given a document called a Merchandising Direction. This document contains extensive information and imagery regarding the floor set for the store, color stories and key merchandise for the month, placement of merchandise within each shop, window display graphics, and mannequin styling examples. Prior to the first week of each month, the store is remerchandised according to the merchandising direction. My internship journey began during the last week of May so I was able to participate in merchandising the June floor set. I learned that although the merchandising direction is extensively detailed, each store is different and the merchandise on hand may vary. For that reason, this task involves adapting the floor set and using problem solving skills to accommodate the space and merchandise available. When it came time to merchandise for the month of July, I was feeling much more confident in my duties as an intern and was able to be more involved in the process. I helped breakdown and rearrange fixtures, adapt the placement of merchandise, and style mannequins to display key items and color stories. During my final floor set for the month of August, I was delegated leadership over merchandising the main entry. I was given the freedom to arrange the fixtures to best suit our space and the designated merchandise, and to style the mannequins successfully. I am proud to have earned this responsibility and to put into practice the skills that I had been developing throughout the course of my internship.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Photo of the entry floor set and fixtures after re-merchandising. The fixtures were arranged prior to receiving the correct merchandise.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Project 2
One unique aspect of our location is that we are a corner store, which means we have double the window space for window displays. In addition to merchandising the main entry, I was given leadership over one side of the front window display. Throughout my experience I had updated promotional signage and restyled mannequins in the window displays, but for this project I was tasked with creating new display arrangements for the mannequins and new signage. I selected graphics from the merchandising direction and drew mockups for mannequin groupings until I found an arrangement that was ideal. I then moved the frames for the signage, swapped out the graphics, and placed stands and mannequins according to my sketches. Finally, I completed the display by selecting a color scheme and styling the mannequins in the month’s new merchandise.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Front window display after re-merchandising.
Example page from the August 2022 Merchandising Direction.
Project 3
Finally, over the course of my 10-week internship experience, I analyzed the weekly sales report containing sales data for each merchandise category to find and correct areas of weakness. Although I looked at all merchandise categories, the opportunity that stood out to me most was footwear. When I first started my internship, our footwear was placed at the back of the store, adjacent to the fitting rooms. Footwear was an underperforming category with a consistently low gross margin percentage. In order to break this pattern, I collaborated with the other intern to remerchandise this category and hopefully increase the gross margin. We decided to bring footwear into the main aisle, near the point of sales where our accessories are located. By the next week, footwear sales had increased significantly and continued to remain strong in the following weeks. Footwear turned out to be a success, but sometimes there are factors other than inadequate merchandising that contribute to a low gross margin percentage. These past few months, denim sales have been consistently low. During the summer months, denim may be hard to sell because it isn’t as wearable in hot weather. Additionally, our denim promotions have significantly reduced the price of our denim meaning that we aren’t making as much revenue per unit sales. Although we remerchandised the denim several times, this didn’t end up having much of an effect on category performance.
This is a sample of the POS - Net Sales report I used to track category sales data for Project 3.
This is a sample of the POS - Net Sales report I used to track category sales data for Project 3.
My experience as a visual merchandising intern within an apparel retailing environment has given me the opportunity to expand and develop my skill set as well as explore a potential career path. I have reinforced my communication skills by working with customers, the sales team, management, and the other visual merchandising intern. The projects I worked on helped me develop my problem-solving skills and become a confident decision maker. I also learned a substantial amount about retail management and operations, and I am proud that during my performance review, my supervisor endorsed me as a fast learner and a responsible worker. In addition to the learning and growing that shaped my experience, I was also able to exercise my passion for creativity. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and have gained knowledge and skills that I will carry through life and as I pursue a career in the apparel industry.