Senior Buyer

Role Overview

Senior Buyer at Apparel Group. This role is responsible for planning and selecting merchandise range, type, quality and quantity according to customer demand, trends, store policies and set prices and sell through targets in conjunction with the Brand Manager/GM to ensure alignment with budget.

Role Purpose

Drive seasonal buying strategies, develop profitable supplier relationships, manage open-to-buy plans, and deliver range assortments that balance margin targets with sales performance while maintaining compliance with brand positioning and contract terms.

Key Responsibilities

Business Strategy

• Drive seasonal strategies in line with brand positioning to formulate Gross Margin Plan.
• Develop a fine-tuned assortment and investment plan.
• Create the sourcing development plan and action the critical path to deliver timely.
• Negotiate with new suppliers on product pricing, payment terms, cost of freight, provision of training, and the extent of their involvement in advertising and promotions to decide on placing a purchase order.
• Manage OTB in tandem with the planning counterpart.
• Deliver the seasonal business strategy by monitoring and impacting the critical path, range building and product selection.
• Prepare and manage the buying calendar.
• Formulate seasonal product focus plan with Marketing and VM to drive key product initiatives.
• Focus on holding current business and build new categories.
• Conduct customer focus groups and competitive shopping.

Supplier & Contract Management

• Maintain profitable relationships with existing suppliers and monitor adherence to contract terms.

Performance & Operations

• Analyse and report weekly sales performance at style, range, category and business unit level against range plan.
• Take in-season action to revise production flows and maximize sales.
• Manage TNA plans.
• Implement the buying calendar for timely seasonal analysis and range build.
• Perform regular competitor surveys to identify product gaps, influence lessons learnt and range plans.
• Manage range and product hierarchy and create the seasonal phasing plan.

Visual & Product Leadership

• Own 'The Look' for the season.
• Influence product selection, in-store VM as per guidelines and layout planning.
• Keep abreast of market trends and awareness of competitor activities.
• Manage product training of staff to ensure up-to-date knowledge.
• Prepare regular trends training and deliver to the business units.

Reporting & Recommendations

• Review buying feedback reports and provide recommendations to General Manager as to buying strategy for a respective brand/collection.