DAY 15

Today was my last day with the VM Team at GAP, It was quite sad having to leave as i had such a great experience working for them and helping them out with their Visual Merchandising! I've learnt so much from this experience, before i started working here i had never dressed a mannequin, done any sort of marketing or displays for a store.

My last day started off with snow - It had been snowing all over Birmingham during the night and the first task i was given was to put coats, jumpers or scarves on some of the mannequins. We had to make them not as S/S as they were before as the weather certainly wasn't warm. I'd never really thought about stores changing the mannequins like this to the weather. I had to change two downstairs as alot of them already had trenchcoats and denim jackets on and then went upstairs to Childrenswear and was allowed to change any of them that i felt needed a coat or a jacket to downplay the summer outfits. 

We were then asked to bring out some stock in the kidswear department, some of the stuff was new but some was just brining out stuff already out. Somehow there seemed to be no toddler hangers in the whole of the store so we had to take items off the shopfloor which were overstocked - we still made sure there was three of each size out but took the extra off the shelf to use the hangers for mainly all the new stock.

After Lunch, I was given the task of doing the mannequins for the denim section, they needed to look quite funky and out there but very layered. The women's section had on a shirt, denim shirt, a denim jacket AND a trench coat so it was very layered and took quite a while to fiddle about and make it look really neat. The Mens mannequin had a two t-shirts on which were on strategically to see both of them, a shirt and a coat. 

I was also asked to re-do a men's jumper display with hanging jumpers. I had to pick out new colours, make sure they were neat and steamed.

As it was my last day i was kindly gave a lovely card and an easter egg! 

I really enjoyed the last day and the whole experience, coming into the placement i was really nervous and didn't know what to expect and didn't really know what we would be doing. Everyone i worked with were absolutely lovely and so welcoming which made it easier for me. The early hours were slightly hard to cope with at first but i made sure to go to bed early to get up bright and early and the physical side of the Visual Merchandising was abit of shock, I never realised how heavy mannequins were and we had to carry fixtures which was a gym workout in it's self! I'm glad i can take away so many new skills from this placement!

Me and the other girls on placement with one of the managers!

DAY 13 & 14

DAY 13

Today was not a busy day at all, I spent all of my time in the Childrenswear department replenishing stock and also bringing out new stock. In the end we must have took out around 25 totes worth of clothes!!

Although we didn't do much today other than put stock out, it was nice to take a break and have a quite calm job for the day!

DAY 14

Today started off with a really big job, since i had started my placement there had been a big wooden structure with little girl mannequins on at the front of the store but today i had been asked to move it upstairs onto a balcony over the shop-floor. It was quite a fun job, we had to dismantle the structure and carry it up the stairs and then cram all the mannequins in the lift and send it up. We then had to try and get the structure pieces round the balcony as there really wasn't alot of space and then set it up and place the mannequins back on the structure in the same order! It looked really good after we had done it and you could see it from the Children's department and from downstairs when you looked up!

The next job i was asked to do was to tidy up the men's trousers at the front of the store, this took quite a while as all the sizes were all mixed up and i needed to sort them into size order! I also added more offer tags to them too!

Although in the past week we had put up a lot of signs about the promotion going on in store and there was lot of tags and visuals about with the percentage off some of the products, there was still a lot of questions been asked about how much things were and weather the discount was already took off - so i was told to put out more obvious signs out with actual price points of some of the products. I had to go check the price at the till and then find visuals and plexi's to put out next to the products. Although i didn't put price points for every items in the promotion. doing this defiantly helped with the confusion of prices. 

The rest of the day was spent replenishing stock and just tidying up general areas which were messy! Tommorow will be my last day on the placement which is just shocking, I can't believe how fast these three weeks have gone and i've enjoyed it so much and learnt a lot!

DAY 12

When i walked into the store this morning it was all in the process off been re-arranged. I was given the task of helping out with accessories as the two accessories walls were getting condensed into one wall and then been filtered around the store. I had to sort the scarves into colours and then tie them on to the racks. 

I was then asked to help with some mannequins at the front of the store. I had to steam to the clothes so they were looking perfect when putting on the mannequins, un-tag them and then put them on the mannequins.

Because of the Spring seasonal offers going on instore the VM team had moved alot of the promo items to the front of the store to make customers more aware of them. I helped setting up plexi's with percentage signs all over the store so the customers had a better understanding of how much of a percentage was off the item. 

After lunch i tidied up the underwear and body section which get's very messy very easily, especially the table with knickers on. I had to sort them into sizes which took forever but it looked neat and tidy by the end! I also tidied up the sale as that get's messy very easily.

Last week i helped on a shirt display for the women's section and i was asked to go and liven it up abit. GAP has a very obvious style with the turned up sleeved and ruffled shoulders - i needed to portray this in the display and make it more alive and 3D. I turned up the cuffs and scrunched up the sleeves and also turned up the hem's!

After sorting out the display i had a couple of little jobs to do before the day was over such as bringing out mannequins, more tagging on the seasonal offers and then replenishing a few items. Today was a lot about making the in-store promo known to the customer and with moving the layout around it was a fun day!

DAY 11

I'm shocked that I'm already into my third and last week of my placement at GAP! Time has flown so quickly so i must be having a great time! Today was super busy doing lots of little tasks! The first thing was spending some time in the Childrenswear department checking tags on the tills to see weather they are included in the promo. I did put tags on some of the garments last week but all we had then was a list of the bar-codes and it was a matter of matching the codes. This was a lot easier but had to be done quickly before the store opened.

After tagging i was asked to re-organize the sale as it was really jumbled up and messy, i also had to sort it out in to colours. The photo i took was later on in the day so it looks messy already which happens really quickly. It must be really annoying for people who work there and have to sort everything out into a lovely layout to have it riffled through. I am always trying to keep it all tidy and neat as no one really wants to see clothes everywhere!

I was then asked to set up a display at the front of the store, this was for the GAP Loves stands which is the stores bestsellers for men and women placed at the front of the store on breezeblocks. I got asked to place the wooden breezeblocks at the front - which i got a splinter from (the injuries from VM Jobs!). I then dressed and styled the mannequins going on the blocks, I choose the beige mac as it is really popular and looks great on the mannequin. I then also had to place racks behind the mannequins with the products shown in front of them. This makes it easier for the customer to find the items in store!

The afternoon was very slow with lot's of little jobs. We spent most of the afternoon replenishing stock which isn't very fun but it gets you to know the stock abit better and where it's located in the store. Especially when you have to wander round the shop finding one item that may or may not need re-stocking. If the rail is full we have to send it back and backstock it. I also had to dismantle some racks to make room for others for seasonal offer rails. 

DAY 10

As the seasonal offers had started yesterday, i got asked to put out more of the stock such as Cardigans and Jumpers, which was on offer for 60% to place at the front of the store then tag any untagged goods using the kimble gun. We needed to make the tags look obvious so that a customer would see when walking past and think there is a great sale going on. GAP try and not make their offers/sales to obvious and in your face like some other retailers - they do use rails full of clothes but they are more put together and unlike a jumble sale. By putting more tags on the sale items, it becomes more obvious to the customer about the offers therefore the company makes more sales.

After lunch i was asked to help tidy up the training room which normally holds a lot of the larger visuals and hold garments. I did smalls tasks such as folding up garments and putting them in the stockroom, dismantling rails and general tidying up of rubbish. We then tried to tidy the Mannequin Room which was quite a task seen as the room was filled right to the door with mannequins of all shapes and sizes and the best we could do was just to straighten them up and pick up anything from the floor! The Mannequin Room is kind of freaky, especially with the lights off, feels like they are going to come to life! I also never realized how many mannequins a store would have as there is also another massive room for Children's, Toddlers and Baby!

For the rest of the day i ended up putting more stock out primarily in the Denim department, It's a tedious job as a lot of it has to be back stocked as Gap always keep topping up the denim department as it's sort of what the store is known for!

This week has flown by and I've really been enjoying this placement and it's made think seriously about pursuing a career in  Visual Merchandising, this placement has given me a great insight into the job role.

DAY 8&9

DAY 8

Today was a really big day at the GAP store, there was a very important visit from the regional boss & the head of all the UK stores. After doing a lot of tasks of making the store look perfect yesterday, we just had to maintain the store and keeping it tidy. First of all i went round the store, tucking in  tags, neatening up piles of clothes and making sure all of the clothes are looking the best. I also had to put out some jumpers on a table and fold them very neatly.

I was asked to mop the floor in the windows and then clean the front windows to make the window displays more presentable and clean!

I spent the rest of the day in the denim section of the store, I had to make sure that all the jeans are in the right section, folded correctly and then put in size order, I also had to make sure that the tags were tucked in so the piles of jeans looked really neat. After the section was looking perfectly, we brought out some more stock to fill in the empty spaces!

DAY 9

Today was the starts of GAP's seasonal offers! I was given a long list of  the codes of products which were going on sale. I was given the underwear/bodywear and BabyGAP/Toddler/Big Girls section. I had to match the codes to the garments and use the kimble gun to attach percentage off tags. Finding the products was really difficult and it ended up been a really long job. Some of the stock wasn't instore so i was looking for items that i didn't know was there or not which was slightly annoying. In the end, i got most of the products on the list tagged. 

After tagging all the offers, i had to replenish the stock and add more products on the shop-floor.

DAY 7

Today, was a really busy day with lots of small tasks to be done! The whole store was preparing for a huge important visit from the top bosses from the region and for all the UK stores! The store needed to looks is absolute best so we had to tidy up everything and made sure that everything was looking it's best. Today i spent my whole day in the Childrenswear department, the first thing i had to do was re-dress one of the toddle mannequins. I got to decide exactly what it wore as long as it was wearing the popular GAP logo hoodie, i chose to layer it up with a really cute polka dot polo shirt! The mannequin was quite difficult to animate with it been sat down and hard to balance so i managed to get in the pose of sitting on the edge of the shelf. I thought this was a really cute pose and it would catch the eyes of customers in the area. 

During the morning we had an evacuation and the whole of the bullring was evacuated! Although it was just a drill it gave a great in-sight on what a store does in an emergency evacuation! It was a really interesting experience seen the whole of the bullring empty and evacuated!

With the other girls, waiting outside the bullring!

When we got back inside i was given another job to unhang products from Baby Gap off a t-bar and fold them on to a table display. 

After dinner i worked in the Big Girls department in re-styling and re-animating five mannequins. The mannequins needed to have very bright and eye catching outfits with colour-popping jeans, GAP hoodies and cute matching t-shirts. These need to include some of the bestsellers in the department.

I also helped out with setting up a new wall for a sixties inspired trend for Toddlers. It was a really cute collection with polka dots and stripes. We had to decide where to place the different garments to build outfits and not to make the patterns clash. I was also asked to do two mannequins to match the style of the wall. I used denim jackets on both of the mannequins and then paired one with polka dots and the other with stripes!

Although today was very fast-paced with lots of different tasks to do, i really enjoyed doing lot's of creative tasks such as dressing the mannequins and having free reign over what to dress them in. 

DAY 6

 I was back to work on Monday morning and i felt better about getting up early, the weekend break was nice to get over the 8am-4pm shifts we were doing. The morning was spent tidying the store as the night before there was a stock-take  The store was left in a big mess with clothes and tags everywhere. The whole day i worked in the Childrenswear department, starting off going round the whole of the big boy's department re-folding everything and placing them back into age order then tucking in the tags. It was surprising how un-tidy it was left so it took all morning to re-arrange it all and get it presentable. Before doing this job i wouldn't have thought that this was the type of work that a Visual Merchandiser would do but it all goes together in making the store perfect for customers and for the layout to be great.

In the Afternoon i continued working upstairs but in the Toddler Girls section. I got asked to change and re-style the mannequins which were on display. I was really happy to have been given this job as the mannequins were right at the front of the department so i needed it to catch lot's of people's attention. I did follow guidelines sent from head office although i got to style it myself and add accesories. If the store didn't have the particular clothing shown in the guide i had to improvise and pick something similar or something that would match really well. The mannequins were on a big wooden display so it was also a really eye-catching piece. I enjoyed doing this although the mannequins for toddlers were quite hard to work with, although they are little and easy to handle the sticks used for the stands needed to up the clothing so i had to figure out the best way to do this and make it as easy as possible. I soon caught the hang of it and loved dressed the mannequins! So far on the work placement, this task has been my favourite thing to do!

The outfits for these mannequins were really cute and great to work with, I added little accessories such as sunglasses and matching socks! 

I continued to work in the girls toddler department and had to decorate one of the walls with garments following the colour scheme - then dress a mannequin also matching what was currently on trend in the toddler department! I had to pick the outfit myself at the garments to hang up! I wanted to make sure there was a variety of garments been hung such as trousers, cardigans, t-shirts, jumpers and a dress!