Career Opportunity
Associate Buyer
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Company Description
At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.
Position Overview
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
Responsibilities:
1) Support the development of the range within brand DNA and financial target:
- Analyze past sales to support the development of the new season strategy
- Work with division manager to determine the optimum way to invest OTB by class
- Build the range based on past season best seller, full price trends & regional needs
- Identify new opportunities and work with the Corporate merchandising & sourcing to include new product in the range
- Work closely with the US & the EU teams to leverage on their buy strategy and their experience
- Present the range to the management to validate the buy
- Post-buy, develop and present a seasonal hand-off to communicate the seasonal strategy to the retail and visual merchandising team
2) Ensure smooth and timely execution of the buy:
- Upon range confirmation take the lead on buy execution
- Determine pricing based on full price pricing structure
- Analyze and determine size curve by market
- Ensure orders are place accurately and on time
- Manage relationship with the sourcing department
3) Manage business in season in collaboration with planning & allocation:
- Track receipt to ensure that seasonal deliveries will arrive in the store on time
- Produce and analyze selling reports and provide markdown recommendations
- Present a business summary on a weekly basis to the Buying and Planning management to discuss key business highlights, risks and opportunities, product best and worst performance and propose any required action
- Work with key partners to ensure the execution of the sales strategy
- Work closely with the retail team in order to understand the business trends and customer expectations
- Collaborate with visual merchandising team to build seasonal guidelines and ensure that the assortment is present on the floor as planned.
- Work closely with planning team to build seasonal strategy, invest OTB and determine markdown and promotional strategy
- Communicate with allocation to ensure assortment is delivered on time and that key items are always on the floor with sufficient depth
Experience, Skills & Knowledge
Responsibilities
- 3+ years retail merchandising buying related experience
- Strong analytical skills and ability to identify commercial opportunities based on analysis produced
- Highly organized and the ability to prioritize team work schedule based on broader business requirements
- Curious, willing to develop and solution-oriented
- Computer proficient in Excel, Word and PowerPoint
- Good communication skills in English both upwards to Senior Management and laterally to business partners both internal and external
- Remain driven when faced with challenging trading positions and/or directives from senior management
- To demonstrate an ability to operate independently within set business goals, working closely with senior business partners
- Candidates with less experience will be considered as Assistant Buyer
