In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.
In the profession of merchandising you are either employed by the store in which you work, or by an independent distributor. As a professional merchandiser, in a retail setting, you will not only know your products(I.e. coffee, juice, soda, etc.) but you will gauge other “vendors” like products as you tend to your job. Working with the store and other merchandisers, shelf space is often given or taken as need be in some locations(for some young merchandisers this is known as “war”)

In retail commerce, visual display merchandising means merchandise sales using product design, selection, packaging, pricing, and display that stimulates consumers to spend more. This includes disciplines and discounting, physical presentation of products and displays, and the decisions about which products should be presented to which customers at what time.
Merchandising helps to understand the ordinary dating notation for the terms of payment of an invoice. Codified discounting solves pricing problems including markups and markdowns. It helps to find the net price of an item after single or multiple trade discounts and can calculate a single discount rate that is equivalent to a series of multiple discounts. Further, it helps to calculate the amount of cash discount for which a payment qualifies.