Assistant Buyer - Men's Contemporary & Active

Company Description

Hudson’s Bay Company is one of the fastest-growing department store retailers in the world.  In North America, HBC’s leading banners include Hudson’s Bay, Lord & Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, Gilt, Saks OFF 5TH, Find @ Lord & Taylor, and Home Outfitters. In Europe, HBC’s banners include GALERIA Kaufhof (the largest department store group in Germany), Galeria INNO (Belgium’s only department store group), and Sportarena. At HBC we are a company of adventurers who explore uncharted territory, challenge convention, and work with imagination and fun. 

Role responsibilities include:

Merchandising:

 Assists in vendor selection and in developing and maintaining strong vendor partnerships. Assists in monitoring industry trends and in evaluating competition, and attends major markets as feasible and necessary. Provides information for the development of the merchandise strategy, and assists in product selection and product and key item development as directed. Assists in conducting line reviews / style outs for management and staff. Assists in setting up new items in the item database. Ensures the dissemination of product knowledge to store associates. Executes the Best / Worst Seller Review. Develops sales unit performance reports. Aids in the preparation of the Merchandise Hindsight. Ensures merchandise samples are maintained accordingly.

Purchasing, Allocation, and Replenishment:

Assists in analyzing class performance, planned class penetration, and average retail by class. Assists in managing the timely placement and maintenance of purchase orders. Assists in providing analysis to support micro-merchandising strategies. Participates in weekly allocation strategy sessions. Assists in merchandise transfer initiation. Executes returns to vendors as negotiated and necessary. Assists in providing feedback for space strategies (fixture /square footage). Ensures the resolution of data integrity (on hand) issues. Provides information for identification of distribution and vendor logistics opportunities. Aid in providing systems (STARS Planning / OTB) expertise for other users. Provides information for coordinating systems (STARS planning/OTB) enhancements requests.

Open-to-Buy Monitoring: 

Assists in the development and maintenance of the PO checkbook. Assists in the bi-monthly forecasting of sales and inventories through the OTB review process. Executes the markdown projection process and provides information for the projection and negotiation of vendor allowance. Supports the development and execution of aged inventory exit strategies. Monitors vendor to store receipt flows, and actual to planned receipts. Manages the purchase journal review process. Assists in providing information for the monitoring of inventory productivity, and the analysis of vendor profitability. Monitors and evaluates the vendor received not ordered compliance report.

Pricing and Promotion: Assists in establishing pricing strategy. Provides data and analysis for price changes, and assists in entering prices changes on line in a timely manner. Assists in planning and approving all advertising and promotions. Assists in providing information for the timely response to store visit notes. Provides feedback for ad in stock on promotional items, and ensures the communication of in-stock issues to stores. Provides analysis and monitors style advertising effectiveness. Manages product ticketing and in-store signage. Facilitates the issuance of store presentation guidance. Furnishes information to Price Management with regard to store communications on pricing issues.

Financial Planning:

 Provides information for the preliminary development of the vendor / store matrix. Provides information for the flow of the departmental topside plans by month. Assists in providing analysis for and participates in the Business Review.

Personal Characteristics:

Participates in training and development. Helps to develop and support a team environment, and participates in the team's activities. Participates in fostering job satisfaction and positive morale. Sense of urgency, flexibility, ability to multi-task.

Professional Qualifications

Strong knowledge of and ability to apply retail math concepts, including elements of markup, margin planning, open to buy, and inventory productivity measures (WOS, T/O, GMROI).

Strong written and oral communication skills, excellent computer skills including MS Word and Excel.