Assistant Buyer - Branded Products

Job description

Our General Merchandise buying teams are key to delivering our ‘More Argos, More Often’ strategy. We have a number of roles across various categories including; Clothing, Electricals, and Furniture.

Our buying teams are responsible for delivering our exciting and ambitious growth plans, offering our customers a great range of products, at a great price, through our multi-channel business.

You’ll input and deliver the 3-6 month promotional strategy for your category and support delivering accuracy in pricing across all of our channels. It takes a flair for relationship building and negotiation, coupled with an analytical approach. Buying forms the backbone of our business so is naturally incredibly fast-paced. You’ll be able to deliver a variety of strategies to help drive sales and profit, and who have an interest in understanding our customers and what they want.

As an Assistant Buyer you’ll:

• Support and input into team objectives to build a commercial, customer focused range through competitor benchmarking, market data and trend direction.
• Have an understanding of sales & profit variables and use of relevant leavers to trade effectively
• Be responsible for range optimisation and understand the in-store experience and impact the branded product ranges have on customers and store colleagues to inform future decisions.
• Have input into planograms, pricing, promotional activity, product specification, supplier selection as appropriate to the product area.
• Support negotiations with UK suppliers with Global sourcing team.
• Be accountable for the adherence to the buying milestones alongside PD and global sourcing within the agreed critical path.
• Support the Buyer and Senior Buyer in liaising with the PD Team and Product Technologist in setting the quality criteria for own label products ensuring the optimal balance between quality and price is maintained.
• Have responsibility for administrative duties and approvals, sample management

Our Buying team would love to see:

• Previous buying experience, preferably from a retail background
• Previous experience of buying branded products
• A passion for product, balanced with understanding the need for commercial acumen
• Strong analytical and numerical skills
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Excellent organisational and admin ability, along with knowledge of word and excel
• Negotiation skills and practices for UK suppliers
• Knowledgeable in market trends
• Ability to demonstrate problem solving and provide resolution in a fast paced environment

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
 
 Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 5% of salary, depending on how we perform.  
 
 Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.
 
 Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. 
 
 Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).

Please note, due to the volume of applications we receive, our roles may close early.