How do you draw an org chart for a chain of stores?

Head office and the field under the chief executive; the field as districts of stores under a VP of stores; one store drawn in full down to its department leads as the pattern, and every other store as its manager. The chain chart shows who runs what; each store gets its own chart when it needs one, and they all have the same shape.

Who does a store manager report to?

A district manager, who reports to a regional manager or the VP of stores depending on the size of the chain. A district is typically six to twelve stores. The store manager owns the store's numbers and its people; merchandising, marketing and loss prevention reach into the store with dotted lines, not solid ones.

Where does e-commerce sit in a retail org chart?

Under marketing in a chain where the site is a channel, or as a peer of stores where it is a business with its own numbers. The part to decide is fulfilment: orders picked at the distribution centre belong to supply chain, and orders picked in stores belong to the store manager's headcount. Draw the line where the picking happens.

How do you show seasonal staff?

As a note on the store card with the peak headcount, and as employees in the store chart while they are there. They are employees, not contractors, however short the season; what the chart needs to say is that the store doubles in spring, so a reader does not mistake the off-season chart for the whole year.

Retail store org chart example

A regional chain of eight stores, drawn the way retail actually divides: the field, where the stores and their people are, and head office, which buys the product, moves it and markets it. The store is drawn once, in full, and the others are the same shape with different names — which is exactly how a chain works.

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Larkspur Home & Garden · 30 people · an invented organisation, drawn by the layout engine. The field under a VP of stores: a district manager over store managers, with one store drawn down to its department leads and the others as their managers; merchandising, supply chain, marketing and e-commerce, finance and people at head office; loss prevention reporting to operations with a dotted line into the district; an open store manager post.

How a retail chain is usually structured

Retail has two halves and they argue. The field is stores: a VP of stores over district managers, each with six to twelve stores, each store with a manager, an assistant manager and department leads over the associates. Head office is everything the stores cannot do for themselves: merchandising, which decides what to sell and at what price; supply chain, which runs the distribution centre and gets the product to the shelf; marketing and e-commerce; finance; people. The chief executive sits over both, and the chart's job is to show which half owns what.

The store is the unit of the chain, and it has a fixed shape. A store manager owns the numbers; an assistant store manager runs the floor and the schedule; department leads — garden, hardware, seasonal, front end — run the associates and the stock in their area. Draw one store to that depth, and draw the other stores as managers only, because the chart is for the chain, not for each store. A chain of forty stores is a chart of forty managers under five districts, with one store shown in full as the pattern.

Merchandising and stores share the product and not the reporting line, which is the tension every retailer manages. A buyer decides the range and a store manager lives with it; a planner allocates stock and a district manager sees it sit. The chart keeps them apart, under the chief merchandising officer and the VP of stores, and the weekly trading meeting is where they meet. E-commerce is its own line now, usually under marketing or as a peer of stores, with fulfilment from the distribution centre or from stores — and the chart should say which, because it decides whose headcount does the picking.

What's particular here

Draw one store, in full
The store is repeated across the chain, so one drawn to the department leads is the pattern and the rest are their managers. Anyone who needs a store chart gets that store; the chain chart stays a page.
District managers carry the span
Six to twelve stores each, visiting rather than sitting. Their span is the number that decides whether the field is managed or merely reported on, and the chart should make it easy to count.
Merchandising is not operations
Buyers and planners decide the product; stores sell it. Draw them under different executives and let the trading meeting do the arguing, or the chart will imply an authority over the range that a store manager does not have.
Loss prevention cuts across
It reports to operations or finance and works in the stores, with the authority to investigate people who do not report to it. Draw the solid line to head office and the dotted line into the district.

Typical titles by level

The vocabulary these charts use, from the top down. Titles vary by country and by company; the levels don't.

Level	Titles you'll see
Head office	Chief Executive, Chief Merchandising Officer, VP Stores or Director of Retail Operations, VP Supply Chain, VP Marketing & E-commerce, Chief Financial Officer, VP People, Director of Loss Prevention, Head of Visual Merchandising
Merchandising and supply chain	Category Manager, Buyer, Assistant Buyer, Merchandise Planner, Allocator, Distribution Centre Manager, Inventory Manager, Transport Manager, E-commerce Manager, Fulfilment Manager
Field management	Regional Manager, District Manager, Store Manager, Assistant Store Manager, Department Manager or Lead, Front End Lead, Visual Merchandiser, Loss Prevention Officer
Store staff	Sales Associate, Cashier, Stock Associate, Receiving Associate, Customer Service Associate, Online Order Picker, Seasonal Associate, Garden Centre Associate

Where these charts go wrong

Retail charts go wrong by drawing every store to the associate, so the document is forty pages nobody opens; by putting merchandising under the VP of stores, or stores under merchandising, so one side of the trading argument owns the other; by leaving e-commerce fulfilment unassigned, so nobody knows whose people pick the online orders; by omitting the distribution centre; and by forgetting the seasonal workforce, which in a garden chain is a third of the headcount for a quarter of the year.

Questions people ask

How do you draw an org chart for a chain of stores?: Head office and the field under the chief executive; the field as districts of stores under a VP of stores; one store drawn in full down to its department leads as the pattern, and every other store as its manager. The chain chart shows who runs what; each store gets its own chart when it needs one, and they all have the same shape.
Who does a store manager report to?: A district manager, who reports to a regional manager or the VP of stores depending on the size of the chain. A district is typically six to twelve stores. The store manager owns the store's numbers and its people; merchandising, marketing and loss prevention reach into the store with dotted lines, not solid ones.
Where does e-commerce sit in a retail org chart?: Under marketing in a chain where the site is a channel, or as a peer of stores where it is a business with its own numbers. The part to decide is fulfilment: orders picked at the distribution centre belong to supply chain, and orders picked in stores belong to the store manager's headcount. Draw the line where the picking happens.
How do you show seasonal staff?: As a note on the store card with the peak headcount, and as employees in the store chart while they are there. They are employees, not contractors, however short the season; what the chart needs to say is that the store doubles in spring, so a reader does not mistake the off-season chart for the whole year.

Other industries

Or start from a structure — functional, divisional, matrix or flat — or from your own spreadsheet. The guides cover a reorg, a merger, an assistant's chart and a consultant's deliverable.

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