Assistant Buyer- YC
Position Summary:
Position Summary
The Assistant Buyer position provides experience and growth opportunities that may enable advancement to a Buyer position.
The major responsibilities include:
- Providing business support to the Buyer through report generation and analysis of business results
- Maintaining communication with Regional Merchandise Coordinator
- Maintaining vendor contacts and tracking orders
- Supporting and participating in assortment planning, seasonal financial planning and store planning
- Assisting the buyer in managing the by-store inventory and Open-to-Buy
- Working closely and communicating with the Planners, Allocators, Buyers, and stores
Essential Functions
- Provide business support to the Buyer through report generation and analysis of business results
- Maintain vendor contacts and relationships. Negotiate significant business decisions in partnership with Buyer
- Support and participate in assortment planning, seasonal financial planning and store planning
- Assist Buyer in projecting and managing all aspects of the Open-to-Buy
- Support Planning team in business analysis to identify opportunities in sales, inventory, and margin by store, department, and class (i.e. ladder plans and re-orders)
- React to business trends and customer/store feedback in a timely and efficient manner
- Create all necessary analysis based on trends and reviews results with buyers
- Execute price changes
- Strategize and execute cross-channel marketing decisions, including review of past effectiveness, planning, negotiating, and securing the distribution of co-op
- Shop competition and provide actionable feedback to the team
- Develop and manage seasonal and monthly visual needs
- Analyze, forecast, and propose pricing markdowns
- Make recommendations on re-order to drive business results. Utilize merchandising systems to drive business results and place conceptual orders (What-If orders, Assortment Planning Tool (APX), Size & Pack Optimization (SPO))
Additional Responsibilities:- Provides coaching and mentoring opportunities for Executive Trainees, interns, and Merchandise Assistants
- Support eCommerce and Content Acquisition Request System (CARS) team as needed
- Support Marketing Workflow activities as needed
- Special projects and other duties as assigned.
- All employees are expected to be in compliance with government and corporate laws, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures.
Requirements/Qualifications:
Position Requirements
Education & Experience:
- Specific Degree: Four-year college degree
- Specific work or project experience: Demonstrated experience using merchandising systems; demonstrated basic-level Microsoft Excel proficiency
- Industry experience: Corporate buying office experience OR internal Executive Trainee program OR relative wholesale experience (e.g. account executive, sales assistant, retail planner)
Preferred: - Specific work or experience: Demonstrated intermediate-level proficiency using Microsoft Office Suite
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
Minimum Required:
- Performs basic retail math calculations and utilizes formulas for analysis, pricing, and marketing activities
- Possesses intermediate written and verbal communication skills to present ideas and oneself in a professional manner and to communicate with all merchandising levels, stores, and vendors
- Flexible; capable of shifting to different projects as priorities change; successfully navigates ambiguity and drives business results regardless of obstacles\
- Analyzes data from multiple sources to identify trends & risks, resolve issues, and recognize opportunities
- Ability to use corporate retail merchandising systems to support buying activities
- Demonstrated ability to develop forecasts/projections based on trends and relationships in data to set future expectations and influence strategy
Preferred: - Demonstrated experience using Microsoft Excel, Oracle or SAS retail merchandising systems
Competencies:
- Exempt professional without direct reports; Supports company initiatives/objectives; Embraces change; Collaborates effectively; Commitment to development; Builds customer loyalty & confidence; Personal accountability for results.
- Contacts are primarily with immediate supervisor, other personnel in the section or group, and both internal & external cross-channel contacts.
- Internal communication including operations, merchandising, planning, digital, data governance
- External communication with vendors
Drives for Results-
Decision Quality
Problem Solving
Action Oriented
Time Management
- Uses his/her time effectively and efficiently; values time; concentrates his/her efforts on the more important priorities; gets more done in less time than others; can attend to a broader range of activities.
- Enjoys working hard; is action oriented and full of energy for the things he/she sees as challenging; not fearful of acting with a minimum of planning; seizes more opportunities than others.
- Uses rigorous logic and methods to solve difficult problems with effective solutions; probes all fruitful sources for answers; can see hidden problems
- Makes good decisions (without considering how much time it takes) based upon a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment; most of his/her solutions and suggestions turn out to be correct and accurate when judged over time; sought out by others for advice and solutions.
- Can be counted on to exceed goals, successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
Physical:
- Available and able to travel
- Able to see and distinguish colors
- Able to lift up to 25 pounds.
For reasonable accommodation information for an ADAAA qualified disability please see Belk Associate Handbook for policy and procedures.