How to become a Retail Manager
Interested in becoming a Retail Manager? Choose Domus Academy for your professional training!
The Retail Manager is a key figure in the retail industry, playing a crucial role in managing multiple stores. This position embodies the direction and leadership necessary to achieve corporate goals, encompassing a wide range of tasks and responsibilities while ensuring customer satisfaction and staff well-being.
The Retail Manager, in addition to managing budgets and defining sales targets for the company, serves as a point of reference for numerous opportunities and challenges. Their role goes beyond supervising daily operations; it extends to key interactions with human resources staff, for example, during a job interview, where they formulate job offers and assess the skills and adaptability of candidates.
As outlined in this brief guide, this professional is essential for the effective management of stores, requiring a combination of skills, experience, and strong leadership to ensure continuous store growth and the achievement of corporate goals. The Retail Manager is also responsible for opening new stores, identifying suitable locations, and overseeing the entire setup process.
The path to becoming a Retail Manager can vary but often involves a combination of professional training and field experience. Many aspiring candidates start their retail career in entry-level positions, gradually acquiring skills and knowledge.
A degree in fields such as management, marketing, or human resources can be advantageous for the curriculum, but practical experience and demonstrating skills are equally crucial.
A Retail Manager must possess a broad spectrum of skills, including leadership, team management, customer orientation, and problem-solving abilities. Their work is as much about the quality of activity as it is about efficiency, ensuring that the brand’s stores and work environments are organised and compliant with current regulations.
Effective communication (with employees, suppliers, and customers), human resource management, and a goal-oriented approach are fundamental.
Retail Managers advise their staff, manage salaries, handle shift or work schedule management, and propose new sales strategies.
Their ability to study market trends and adopt new sales techniques for customer care is essential for keeping stores at the forefront with up-to-date products and events. Supervising daily operations, mastering soft skills such as motivation and conflict management, are also vital for this role.
Retail Managers frequently use activity management software and data analysis tools to monitor store performance. These tools aid professionals in developing effective marketing strategies, supervising operations, and evaluating staff performance.
Retail Managers primarily work at the company’s headquarters, where their influence extends to the marketing and corporate strategy area. They can work in a variety of sectors in the job market, including design and fashion, where they manage staff, acquire and organize goods, ensure customer satisfaction, and achieve sales targets.
Retail Managers can develop their skills in the Master in Fashion Management, where students engage with numerous brands, tackling real projects and challenges proposed directly by the companies.
The Master in Fashion Management combines the study of fashion phenomena with managerial principles covering multiple sectors, from purchasing to merchandising, from communication to marketing, from production to distribution.
Students are introduced to the language and codes of the fashion environment. Under their professors’ supervision, they learn to conduct research projects, analyse, evaluate, and implement strategies consistent with the brand identity. In the dynamic world of retail, stimulating opportunities arise in various areas, including Retail Management. It’s increasingly recognised that in-store experience, in direct contact with the customer, can be the starting point for a brilliant career in fashion.