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Online Bachelor's Degree BS in Fashion Merchandising Management

Develop Your Business & Merchandising Skills with a Fashion Merchandising Degree Online

The fashion marketplace is dynamic – seasons, cultures, new materials and retro ideas all influence hot new trends. It takes a trained eye and skillful manager to showcase and sell style to a fashion-conscious public.

In the online Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising Management program, you’ll develop a timeless sense of style and gain a firm grasp of business strategy. Study fashion marketing, color and textile theory, consumer behavior and retail operations, planning and management. You’ll learn how to identify what styles will sell and how to present visual cues that prompt consumers to buy.

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See Yourself Succeed in Fashion Merchandising Management

The fashion merchandising degree online courses are taught by industry experts who know the fashion marketplace intimately. Class sizes are small, so you'll have the opportunity to interact with instructors who understand how style, business and technology intersect. You’ll also gain valuable real-world experience by completing a fashion merchandising internship that gives you the opportunity to show employers the value you can add to their business.

In the bachelor’s in fashion merchandising program, you’ll learn how to:

  • Create fashion merchandise planning strategies that integrate the retailer’s positioning, vendors' interests and plans for generating profit
  • Apply management theories and techniques in the fashion merchandising environment to achieve retail objectives and remain competitive
  • Collect and organize industry data through the use of qualitative and quantitative tools
  • Interpret data to predict influences of trends in fashion merchandising
  • Employ effective decision-making to select textile and production sources from domestic and international markets

As a private, nonprofit university, SNHU has one mission – to help you see yourself succeed. The benefits of earning your fashion merchandising degree online at SNHU include:

  • Affordability. Take advantage of some of the most affordable tuition rates in the nation
  • Convenience. Attend class when it’s convenient for you – online education means 24/7 access
  • Efficiency and flexibility. Complete your undergraduate degree at your own pace, over six 8-week terms per year
  • Expert instruction. Learn from instructors with relevant, real-world experience
  • Networking. Tap into our nationwide network of alumni for internship and career opportunities
  • Simple application process. Just fill out an online undergraduate application, and we’ll retrieve U.S. transcripts from your previous institutions and automatically complete an official credit evaluation. Plus, there’s no application fee
  • Student support. Count on the ongoing support of dedicated academic and career advisors specialized in your area of study
  • Transfer-friendly enrollment. Transfer up to 90 credits toward an undergraduate degree

Career Outlook

The fashion merchandising industry covers the entire globe, from the fashion capitals of the world to local boutiques. The demand for professionals with a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising is rising, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Through 2020, employment opportunities are expected to increase by 19.8 percent for first-line supervisors in clothing and accessories stores.

Earning a degree in fashion merchandising online from SNHU can position you for an exciting career that puts you, and fashion, in the public eye. Students in our fashion merchandising program will find opportunities as buyers, visual merchandisers, sales representatives, vendor relations specialists, store and product planners, and sales managers.

SNHU students and alumni have worked for a number of well-known companies, including:

  • Coach
  • Timberland
  • Reebok International
  • Gap Inc.
  • Kenneth Cole
  • Macy's
  • Saks Fifth Avenue
  • Jessica McClintock

Curriculum

In SNHU's fashion merchandising degree online program, you'll combine your understanding of design and color theory with business planning and marketing. Textiles, retailing and merchandise planning are just the beginning – you'll also choose from electives in consumer promotion, retailing management and global fashion merchandising topics.

Required Core Courses
General Education Program
Business Core Program

Degree Courses
FMM 114 Introduction to Fashion Merchandising

Fashion principles and procedures used in planning, selecting, pricing and selling fashion goods in retail stores, catalogs and on the Internet are studied. Merchandising systems, assortment plans and inventory control methods are analyzed. A field trip to New York City's market district is a possibility.
FMM 204 Textiles and Color Theory

Textile information pertinent to merchandising is included in this course. Analysis of fibers, yarns and weaves, fabric recognition, and a detailed study of natural and man-made materials are emphasized.
FMM 208 History of Fashion and Costume

Fashion is another term for the costume of a time and place, an expression of a period with all of its passions, politics, attitudes and history. This course considers textiles, silhouettes, shapes, and design adaptations in light of the technological capacities of the time, the geographic environment, social structure, political systems and economic conditions around the globe and over time. Students will gain an understanding of appreciation of how these underpin and influence contemporary fashion design and development.
FMM 225 Merchandise Planning

This course seeks to instill in students a complete understanding of the influence of merchandise planning and purchasing on retail profit. Students analyze profit and loss statement and demonstrate a complete understanding of the factors that influence the retailer's financial performance.
FMM 325 Sustainability in Fashion

The overall objective of this course is to explore the role that sustainability plays in fashion merchandising managers' decision to buy from vendors. It explores production and commercialization decisions with respect to buying green. It exposes students to the influence of social responsibility on fashion retailers' decisions.
FMM 340 Merchandise Management Strategies

Effective merchandise management involves efficient decision making. Ordering, keeping and managing the right merchandise in terms of size and quantity are the key to a retailer's success. Retail merchandise management brings to light the vital relationship between the manufacturer and the retailer. Students explore various strategic techniques that influence profit including vendors-fashion retailers' negotiations over merchandise. Offered online and offered on campus only in Spring semester.
FMM 410 Fashion Research and Forecasting

This course applies the qualitative and quantitative investigations approaches to fashion and fashion accessories. Students will analyze descriptive and inferential statistics to understand consumer taste for current and future trends in fashion.
FMM 457 Strategic Fashion Management

Students utilize knowledge accumulated in various courses of the program to design a fashion merchandise strategy for a local fashion and apparel retailers or a strategy for fashion accessory retailers. This course considers both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to investigate management issues or examine opportunities for fashion retailers. Offered online and offered on campus only in Spring semester.
MKT 490 Marketing Internship

The primary goal of the internship experience is to expose students to actual practices in the world of work outside of the classroom, to relate this experience to academic course work and to synthesize the two in a practical application of knowledge in an experiential setting. Secondarily, internships offer the opportunity to develop crucial job searching skills, explore career interests, enhance your resume, make contacts in your chosen field and build references for future employment. Each intern will work in a career-related position during the academic term for which the student is enrolled for the internship - fall, spring or summer - completing a minimum of 150 hours on the job per 3 credits. Students can complete 3-12 hours of MKT 490 credit.

QSO 330 Supply Chain Management

This course focuses on effective supply chain strategies for companies that operate globally with emphasis on how to plan and integrate supply chain components into a coordinated system. Students are exposed to concepts and models important in supply chain planning with emphasis on key tradeoffs and phenomena. The course introduces and utilizes key tactics such as risk pooling and inventory placement, integrated planning and collaboration, and information sharing.

Select Two (International):*

FMM 417 Global Sourcing and Apparel

This course analyzes global trades in textiles and apparel. The course explains the necessity of export and import in the textiles and apparel industry. Topics include global trades in apparel (the benefits of export and import), trade policies and trade organizations. Offered online and offered on campus only in Spring semester.
MKT 322 International Retailing

This course compares and contrasts retail institutions in selected countries. Students examine the social, economic and political influences on the development of global retailers and consider how retailing trends spread from culture to culture. Students also examine the similarities and differences in merchandising, sales promotion, pricing, personal selling and electronic retailing policies of retailers around the globe. This course is cross-listed with INT 322. Global marker.

Select Two (Consumer Production):*

MKT 230 Retail Sales Promotion

This course focuses on sales promotion in the retail sector. The specific needs of retailers in the areas of advertising, visual merchandising, personal selling, and special events planning are among the topics addressed. The culminating project will be a sales promotion plan that will include a major special event. This project is designed to be flexible to support the range of retailing interests represented in the class.
MKT 231 Visual Merchandising

Retail marketing is a highly charged, highly competitive component of the marketing discipline. Consumers everywhere and of every age and economic category, are well informed by internet sources. Driven by access and awareness, they are looking to be courted and enticed to buy one merchant's goods over another. Visual merchandising is the art and business of creating such attraction, using merchandise that is color coordinated, accessorized, sparkling, exciting, and causing shoppers to stop, take a closer look, and buy. Visual merchandising is retail theater at its best, complete with costumes, props, and sets. Like all marketing, however, visual merchandising has a clear purpose - sales- and therefore is strategic in nature, a component of a larger marketing picture. This course addresses the creative and strategic nature of visual merchandising, connecting students with both the flair and fancy of visual merchandising and the nitty-gritty of strategic planning, and clarifying the connection between them.
MKT 345 Consumer Behavior

This course explores the behavior that consumers display in searching, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of products.

Select Two (Retail):*

MKT 222 Principles of Retailing

This course studies the basics of retailing and emphasizes the development of retail institutions, store layout and design, merchandising, pricing and problems retailers experience in today's business environment.
MKT 228 Technology in Fashion and Retailing

This course addresses web-based fashion and retailing business issues. On the one hand it explores the influence of technology on fashion products development. On the other hand it explores the role that technology plays at various levels of the retail business including supply chain development, retail channel management and consumer shopping experience.
MKT 442 Retail Management

An advanced course that moves beyond the scope of MKT 222, this course is geared to the retailing major. Store operations, human relations, information technologies, shopping center management, merchandising policies and industry trend analysis are covered. Guest speakers and study tours to retail companies are included. Writing intensive course.
*Students may select International, Consumer Production, or Retail.

Free Elective Credits: 15

Total Credits: 120

Program Outcomes

Tuition & Fees

Tuition rates for SNHU's online degree programs are among the lowest in the nation. We offer financial aid packages to those who qualify, plus a 30 percent tuition discount for U.S. service members, both full and part time, and the spouses of those on active duty.

Online Undergraduate Programs Per Course* Per Credit Hour*
Degree/Certificates $960 $320
Degree/Certificates
(U.S. service members, both full and part time, and the spouses of those on active duty) 		$675 $225

*Tuition Rates are subject to change and are reviewed Annually.

Additional Costs

No Application Fee, $150 Graduation Fee, Course Materials ($ varies by course)

University Accreditation

Southern New Hampshire University is a private, nonprofit institution accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges as well as several other accrediting bodies. More...

This program is accredited by both NEASC and ACBSP.