Senior Fashion Buyer - E-Commerce Experience

Develop and implement Fashion Brand and Product Strategy with a view to supporting the successful achievement of goals and objectives. Be a leading member of the buying team, re-focusing & planning the department to maximize our brand's full selling potential while still maintaining our group strategy in line with our team KPIs.

Pre-season Planning & Strategy Buildup

• Develop, maintain, and communicate to team members as well as Account Manager a clear and well-articulated buying plan supported by sales, promotion, and branding/supplier strategy.
• Drive and manage the assortment development and review, providing analysis to support decision-making whilst owning product selection oversight.
• Reconcile top-down budgets with bottom-up department plans and forecasts alongside the Merchandise Planner and present these to the Account Manager.
• Maintain awareness of yearly & seasonal business revenue shapes and manage inventory planning for uptake in sales keeping in mind and potential loss in margin due to promotional activity.

Collection Development & Selection

• Manage a holistic view of your business and constantly feedback information to the teams to make sure we are meeting plans.
• Manage a brand & category matrix to help identify duplication as well as potential gaps in our assortments.
• Understand your customers and provide the teams with a detailed view of varied customer profiles.
• Accumulate trend information and generally maintain market and competitor awareness in keeping with our target customers to inform and analyze buying decisions and product performance.
• Target and acquire brands/products based on style knowledge and understanding of our strategy and target customers as well as identify new categories and product opportunities.
• Make selections by working closely with your Merchandising counterpart from identified suppliers based on robust analysis of sales and inventory data, developing the assortment within your category, and adhere to budget and price levels as agreed by top management.
• Manage responsibility of overseeing buyers & junior buyers selections making sure the analysis and roll up are in line with business plans & targets.
• Proactively identify strong and weak selling items to make adjustments to your selection strategy accordingly.
• Ensure that purchased products are competitively priced while margins are kept in line with budgets and business requirements.
• Understand product and price positioning of products and gather knowledge of how the design and specifications impact on the target cost price.
• Negotiate contracts, discounts, and payment terms with suppliers to improve margins and cash flow across the department in line with buying strategy and KPIs.
• Make regular business trips to preview new season collections and present the brand with a business review to aid in commercial terms development

Order & Intake Management

• Manage monthly department level open-to-buy whilst ensuring alignment to business plans.
• Manage inventory levels through ordering sufficient quantities of the product while ensuring the best performers are adequately stocked and poor performers are cleared (negotiate returns to supplier and markdown contribution).
• Manage order deadlines to allow enough time for the account manager to review & approve orders before placing.
• Plan deliveries in line with sales targets & % mix by category, price level, and stock levels to achieve sales, profitability, and turnover.
• Communicate regularly with suppliers to build robust and preferential relationships and secure timely delivery of orders and favorable credit terms.
• Conduct weekly meetings with supply chain and update account manager and rest of the team on the delivery status and actions to be taken.
• Build strong relationships with the operations, logistics, and production teams to proactively ensure easy and accurate exchange of information.

Marketing

• Plan the launch of key brands together with the marketing team.
• Work closely together with the account manager on Marketing and Content trends and planned