Purpose
Belleville Market is a curated retail environment designed to provide customers with a thoughtful, elevated, and differentiated shopping experience. To support this goal, product assortment throughout the store is intentionally managed to minimize unnecessary duplication while encouraging variety, discovery, and merchant success.
This guideline explains how Belleville Market evaluates product overlap and manages assortment decisions across the store.
Our Retail Model
Belleville Market operates as a modern neighborhood department store that combines Belleville-curated merchandise with carefully selected independent merchants.
Merchants are chosen not simply to fill space, but because they bring unique products, expertise, and perspective to the overall shopping experience.
As members of a shared retail environment, merchants are expected to:
- Maintain a thoughtful and cohesive assortment
- Focus on their area of expertise
- Contribute positively to the overall product mix
- Operate collaboratively with fellow merchants
- Assortment Authority
Belleville Market maintains final authority over all assortment, merchandising, and product placement decisions.
Participation in Belleville Market includes operating within a shared environment where product overlap may be reviewed, adjusted, approved, restricted, or removed in support of the overall store strategy.
No Guaranteed Exclusivity
Unless specifically granted in writing by Belleville Market, merchants are not guaranteed exclusivity for:
- Brands
- Suppliers
- Product categories
- Individual products
- Product styles or themes
Being the first merchant to introduce a product, category, or brand does not automatically grant ongoing exclusivity.
Managing Product Overlap
When overlap occurs between merchants, Belleville Market may consider:
- Overall fit within the store
- Strength of assortment
- Merchandising presentation
- Customer experience
- Product differentiation
- Inventory depth and consistency
- Existing category representation
Merchants may be asked to modify, differentiate, reduce, or remove products that create unnecessary duplication.
Identical Products
Identical products (same brand and SKU) will generally not be carried by multiple merchants simultaneously.
When identical products are introduced, Belleville Market may:
- Assign the product to a single merchant
- Consolidate placement
- Request removal of duplicate inventory
- Approve multiple placements when a compelling merchandising reason exists
These decisions are made at Belleville Market's sole discretion.
Category Expansion
Merchants wishing to expand into a new category or significantly broaden their assortment should consult Merchant Support before doing so.
This allows Belleville Market to:
- Evaluate potential overlap
- Maintain assortment balance
- Protect the overall customer experience
- Support merchant success
- Belleville-Led Assortment
As the store operator, Belleville Market may introduce, expand, reduce, or discontinue products within any category at any time.
This may occasionally result in overlap with existing merchant assortments and is considered part of the normal operation of a curated department store environment.
Please note that certain brands, suppliers, and product lines may be reserved exclusively for Belleville Market.
For information regarding restricted brands and exclusive supplier relationships, please refer to the Exclusive Brands, Suppliers & Restricted Product Lines guideline.
Summary
A carefully curated assortment is one of the things that makes Belleville Market unique.
By thoughtfully managing product overlap and maintaining a balanced merchandise mix, we create a stronger shopping experience for our guests and better opportunities for long-term merchant success.