Landmark Group - Buyer - Category Management - Home Centre

Position Objective/Role Expectations:

The Buyer will work with the Buying Manager and Senior Buyer in building the category assortment and making it profitable.

Key Responsibilities:

Market Research & Product Development

- Conduct market visits for R&D within territories and secure the required information for competition benchmarking in a defined format

- Conduct competition benchmarking across all territories for all the defined UDAs and identify "So What" for each UDA

- Attend Trade fairs in order to assess trends and be abreast with the current market scenario

- Conduct customer home visits or stores to secure Customer / Retail feedback and incorporate revisions in the assortment accordingly

- Identify new products of international retailers through online research in order to assess trends and be abreast with the current market scenario

- Ensure that the product development / sourcing process is as quick and efficient as possible, in order to ensure extremely fast time to market

- Prepare and maintain newness tracker for respective category

- Ensure newness is reviewed and ordered on time

- Ensure all columns in the Product Launch Pack (PLP) are filled correctly for all new products especially features and benefits to customer

Category Management, Growth & Profitability

- Prepare data for UDA analysis and conduct initial level of checking to ensure no data entry gaps

- Prepare price ladder for key UDAs across all territories

- Support senior category management to prepare assortment and pricing architecture by analyzing UDAs, competition benchmarks and Price ladders

- Prepare parts of assortment presentation together with other team members

- Identify and react quickly to trends in the business to maximize sales, test emerging trends for selling viability

- Analyze weekly and monthly sales, margins and inventory with the goal of optimizing sales and minimizing markdowns

- Liaise with cross functional teams- VM, Marketing, eCom, L&D and Retail teams to develop strong story lines for digital marketing as well as in-store experience delivering omni-channel synergies

- Conduct Product by Product (PBP) analysis along with Planning to ascertain monthly buys as per spend plan

- Ensure management and ordering of Good Loose Components

- Take timely action on current / potential aged items to ensure the ageing stock remains within the defined target

Vendor Management

- Work directly with the supplier to ensure that the products are perfectly chosen, engineered and manufactured to ensure the best possible cost price, retail price and margin, following company policy and targets

- Own sourcing KPIs for key categories, especially product margin & quality KPIs

- Maintain strategic relationships with suppliers across continents, including negotiations and building optimal supply chain set ups

- Identify new suppliers and provide documents and assistance to register them in the vendor database

- Co-ordinate with suppliers to secure samples

Key Requirements

- 3+ years of category, product development and sourcing experience, for furniture and home furnishing products or from retail industry is preferred

- Ability to thrive in a high growth, entrepreneurial and ambiguous environment

- Strong analytical, commercial, and problem-solving skills, with a "hands-on" attitude and a focus on fast execution

- Good sense for trends, creativity and a thorough understanding of customer needs

- Strong communication skills and ability to clearly communicate with different stakeholders

- Ability to prioritize tasks and to balance immediate and long term needs of the business while retaining agility to pivot as needed

- Ability to recognize a new trend, item, look, technique, early in its life-cycle and deliver quickly

NIFT + MBA is mandate to have.