Hello everyone! I hope you all are holding up as best as you possibly can during this time!
Do you think the days of having Visual Merchandising teams are coming to an end, or do retailers need us now more than ever? It was very alarming to see that Forever 21 ended their District Visual division, and even Nike has cut roughly 2000 jobs(unsure if they were Visual positions or not).
I supposed I am frightened that other retailers will follow suit and start dismantling their teams.
Yes, I think visual merchandising is a luxury that a lot of retailers can’t afford right now. Brand Coordinators are probably getting crushed by COVID too.
As someone who worked in Visual Merchandising for a decade, I can tell you the companies I worked for started aggressively peeling back on VM well before COVID. I experienced two huge cut backs in this area in 2016 and 2018 before leaving this path. If you work in flagship retail, in a major city, your job is likely safer. Anywhere else I expect will continue on a trend to redistribute VM functions to sales staff and operational management.
I agree with Loo. My former company in luxury retail cut back the area visuals leaving only a director, east and west coast leads. Most visual sets now under covid will be done on line with the store teams and any window visual props will be set up by the visual vendor in conjunction with the store teams.
Hopefully this will change next year as we move into the new norm and some business travel will resume.
I thought I was the only one who thought this! I was recently laid off from H&M and I fear that the visual merchandising position will be downsized tremendously in the future.
It seems to be more about measurables and productivity. VM is too subjective and therefore, easily dismissed. Many executives don’t attribute sales to visual merchandising. In big box, Merchandising teams have definitely been slimming down for years, unless morphed into Operations in some way, through replenishment, receiving, etc.
It seems there is a business opportunity for someone who can quantify the impact of specific visual merchandising installations.
I worked for the same retailer for 10 years that had a heavy buy in for visual merchandising. As the years passed the goal posts moved constantly on expectations of visual merchandisers and visual managers contribution to the store. Mainly, less time for the much needed tasking and more operations training and support. There was always push back at store and field as far as what was realistic to accomplish with merchandisers having a presence on the sales floor during peak periods, and to “appease” merchandisers they started to simplify visual standards. I left the company right before the pandemic hit, and since I’ve gone, they have removed district visuals and multiple visual leaders in corporate, and cut back on most styling through out the store outside of mannequins. Also, during interviews lately I find myself having to play down my visual experience and play up on my knowledge of operations. My visual skills seems to be just an after thought to my overall retail experience.