Product & Merchandising Management
Merchandisers play an instrumental role in ensuring that brands and retailers offer consumers what they want, whether it is in fashion goods such as clothing and footwear or consumer products and packaged goods like food and beverage, cosmetics, and cleaning products.
Overview
Can you see yourself working for a brand or retailer to develop, present and manage the product assortments they offer to consumers? Merchandisers play an instrumental role in ensuring that brands and retailers offer consumers what they want, whether it is in fashion goods such as clothing and footwear or consumer products and packaged goods like food and beverage, cosmetics, and cleaning products.
We prepare you for careers related to the development and presentation of customer-right merchandise. You’ll develop skills in fashion forecasting, market analysis, design thinking, retail and merchandising analytics, and visual merchandising through coursework and hands-on projects.
You will also graduate with a solid business foundation through courses such as global sourcing, entrepreneurship, marketing, consumer behavior, and more.
A quality education guided by industry standards — our program is ranked as one of the top-five fashion merchandising programs on the west coast.
We offer product and merchandising management as a design major program and merchandising management as minor to supplement any major in Corvallis.
What you’ll learn
Explain how social, environmental, political, cultural and economic systems and geography relate to the planning, creation, production, merchandising, distribution, consumption, and resulting company performance of textile, apparel and footwear products.
Apply market research skills throughout the line planning and development process to establish line direction in terms of color, style, materials, separates/coordinates balance and pricing.
Development assortment plans that are in line with specific target markets, company location and/or selling format, marketplace trends and performance goals.
Develop merchandise budgets and analyze and update budgets to meet company performance goals.
Use industry-relevant technology to formulate and communicate merchandising decisions.
Apply visual and promotional strategies across different selling formats that would potentially enhance company performance.
College of Business degrees and options
Classes with fewer than 50 students
Companies recruit our students each year
Options:
Once you enroll in the product & merchandising management degree, you can select from the following options:
Product & merchandising management opportunities
Study abroad
Sydney, Australia: University of Technology Sydney
Vienna, Austria: Vienna University of Economics & Business
Santiago, Chile: Universidad de Chile, Facultad Economia y Negocios
Associated clubs
American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists
National Retail Federation
Scholarships
Cecelia T. Shuttleworth
Merchandising Management Scholarship
N. Marie Ledbetter Memorial Scholarship
Ways to attend
We offer classes in the modalities that work for you and your schedule.
Attend classes in Austin Hall, the $50 million, 100,000-square-foot building with five research centers, a marketing research suite, 10 classrooms, 23 computer- and teleconference-equipped project rooms, a 250-seat auditorium, a café and faculty offices.
Request more information
Ready to take the next steps? Complete the form to receive detailed information about our programs and how they might work for you.
Merchandising management & business: Add an option or minor
The merchandising management minor pairs well with business specialty degrees, e.g., marketing, business analytics, entrepreneurship, supply chain and logistics management or accounting.
The minor provide specialization that positions business students for careers in the retail industry — the largest private-sector employer in Oregon and the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation.
Student stories
