By Mary White

So many mothers want to work, but also want to stay at home with their children.

The ideal job for a stay-at-home mom who wants to work part-time is one that is flexible enough that she can easily manage her work and family responsibilities, without having to invest in full-time day care or after school care.

Merchandising is a perfect option for many moms in this situation. Many manufacturers who market their products through retail stores hire companies to provide in-store merchandising services. These merchandising service providers in turn hire representatives to complete store visits.

Some merchandising jobs are full-time and require travel from one market to another on a regular basis. However, many merchandising positions are part-time, independent contract positions. Some such jobs are on-going, and some are project based.

Typically, for an ongoing merchandising position, an independent contractor will be assigned to complete a certain number of calls to a particular store for a particular product. For example, XYZ Merchandising might have a contract to service a particular brand of hair accessories in a particular drug store chain.

XYZ Merchandising may hire an independent contract in each market to do one monthly store visit to each location that carries the product. The merchandiser will typically straighten the display, bring product to the floor from the stock room, and fill out a re-stocking order form based on a pre-arranged inventory level.

The great thing about these types of independent contractor positions is that they can typically be performed any time the store is open. A busy mom can take care of this assignment while her young child is in a mom’s day out program, or while running errands after dropping the kids off at school.

There are many opportunities to find gainful work in merchandising, but these opportunities are typically not advertised in the help wanted ads in the newspaper, nor are they listed with employment agencies.

One of the best resources for finding merchandising job opportunities in your area is to visit the National Association of Retail Marketing Services (NARMS) website. This organization’s membership consists of numerous merchandising service provider organizations.

NARMS allows members to post open positions on a job board that is organized by state on the site. Additionally, individuals seeking to learn about merchandising job opportunities in their area can register to receive daily updates of jobs that become available in their area.

Only NARMS members are allowed to post jobs on this site, so you can feel confident that the companies who advertise jobs here are in fact legitimate merchandising service organizations.

There is also a list of member organizations posted on the site, so if you are really anxious to begin your merchandising career, you may want to print a copy of the list, and then look up the member organizations’ websites. Most of them have online application forms that allow you to specify the number of hours you are interested in working, as well as particular markets that you would like to service.

There are other ways to locate potential merchandising jobs in addition to the NARMS website. This is a good starting point for you to begin getting into merchandising, although you should feel free to research additional options. Just keep in mind that you should never pay a fee to find out about merchandising job opportunities, and no legitimate employer will ever ask you to pay a fee as part of the job application process.

There is a wide variety of seasonal, project-based, and ongoing merchandising work in many different types of stores, all over the world.

By applying with a variety of merchandising service organizations, there is a good chance that you will have an opportunity to get some experience in the fun, interesting, and flexible field of merchandising.