Buyer/Senior Buyer

Summary

The Buyer/Senior Buyer oversees purchasing, distribution, and merchandise management for assigned teams and categories. They develop and execute a merchandising strategy to achieve key performance indicators, identify optimal product assortments, negotiate with suppliers, and collaborate with planners and allocators. They also mentor and coach more junior merchandising associates and ensure the overall financial performance of assigned merchandise areas.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Leads and mentors merchants in all aspects of business and professionalism for knowledge transfer, skill development, and team cohesion.

• Takes on additional projects to help drive future efficiency with systems and processes continuous improvement, anticipating future needs, and employment development.

• Manages larger volume or complex category(s) of business for economic scale, strategic impact, and risk mitigation.

• Facilitates change adaptability to other members of the merchandising team.

• Researches market trends, consumer buying behaviors (internal and external), and competitor strategies and actions to forecast product demand, projected inventory requirements, and sales levels.

• Develops sales and merchandising plans to achieve key performance indicators and financial objectives that align with the organization's business plan and financial targets.

• Negotiates terms of buys, profitability, shipping, marketing proposals, and product selection with vendors to ensure optimal product selection is achieved.

• Builds and manages vendor relationships to ensure the organization receives product assortments that match customer demographics and buying patterns.

• Communicates with vendors to respond to current conditions and anticipate future requirements.

• Works with Assortment Planning team to build relevant assortments for stores each season, ensuring stores offer relevant, profitable assortments tailored to customer needs.

• Prepares, creates, writes, and issues purchase orders and change notices to enhance efficiency, transparency, and legal compliance in business transactions.

• Executes markdowns on slow product to manage aged inventory and maintain profitability and appropriate inventory turnover.

• Reviews market and delivery conditions to determine present and future merchandise availability and prepares market analysis reports.

• Identifies risks and opportunities by category and manages processes to meet inventory and fulfillment goals.

• Provides marketing department with samples, product flow, big stories, and direction regarding how to merchandise product in stores.

• Communicates with field representatives, including district managers and regional managers as needed.

• Listens actively to geographic/demographic requests and addresses as appropriate.

• Manages financial sheets with monthly sales, inventory, and profitability projections for the category of responsibility.

• Participates in monthly EOM financial meetings to inform planning and management teams of the state of the business.

• Solves shipping and packing issues, tracks orders to ensure they are being allocated correctly and on time, and manages inventory flow to ensure appropriate levels.

• Communicates and coordinates with allocation and planning to allocate and manage inventory levels and products in stores.

• Instructs allocation team on how to execute the needs of the buy of products and merchandising vision.

• Attends major shows and vendor meetings throughout the year as appropriate, ensuring product lines are current and capitalizing on new trends and/or products.

• Reviews new and current vendors to meet receipt and white space as needed.

• Mets/Exceeds store visit requirements as determined on a quarterly/yearly basis.

• Shops competitor locations consistently to stay on top of product trends in their locations.

• Protects company's assets and financial information by ensuring the accuracy and effectiveness of internal control procedures and informing management and/or appropriate officials of potential fraud risk.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in merchandising or a related field or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years for Buyer and 7+ years for Sr. Buyer of related experience.
• Experience working for a retail company, specifically footwear.
• Proficient in strategic thinking and have advanced business acumen to organize success by aligning actions with broader objectives.

Coaches and mentors more junior merchandising associates.