Buyer - Softline's - Marshall Retail Group

About Us:

WH Smith is a leading global travel retailer with over 1,700 stores across 30 countries worldwide. WHSmith North America, incorporating Marshall Retail Group (MRG) and InMotion, represents over half of the Company’s international store estate, with a collection of attractive, successful specialty retail stores located in airports and resorts across North America.

Marshall Retail Group prides itself on creating unique experiences for customers by developing distinctive retail store concepts that feature and highlight the local culture, community, and lifestyle of the cities in which they are located. InMotion Entertainment Group is the largest airport-based electronics retailer in travel locations globally, with access and insight into the latest technologies for business and leisure travelers, InMotion offers lifestyle products and electronics that include a wide breadth of headphones, mobile power, Bluetooth speakers and travel accessories.

Job Summary:The Senior Buyer is responsible for procuring, developing, and managing effective merchandise assortments to achieve the sales, margin, and turnover targets for his/her respective buying areas. In partnership with their DVP and respective Planner, the Buyer will create the appropriate merchandise mix and develop category and supplier strategies based on emerging market trends, seasonality, and customer demographics.

• Develop and execute merchandise assortment strategies to meet or exceed the financial goals
• Product development as needed in accordance with the respective brands, departments, and concepts.
• Partner with Planner to manage and adhere to Open-to-Buy (OTB) budget.
• Work with vendors to resolve purchase order discrepancies and compliance issues.
• Analyze business at division, department, class, subclass, attribute, and store level.

• Create and maintain open lines of communication with Planner, Store Managers, Regional Managers and other co-workers.
• Negotiate with vendors to secure the best terms for maximum margin results, including supplier income, and best pricing as well as markdown and/or RTV agreements.
• Prepare for and participate in regular Merchandising meetings such as Weekly Performance Meetings, Month End Review / OTB meetings, Collaboration meetings, New Store Review meetings, etc.
• Develop seasonal trend presentations and participate in seasonal workshops to educate the field organization (applicable by merchandise category).
• Visit our stores (including visits on location as requested) to evaluate assortments, presentations, stock levels, marketing, customers, and obtain feedback from store personnel.  Visit competitors to evaluate pricing, assortments, and market trends for possible opportunities. 
• Carry out tasks related to new stores, including research into new markets (including visits on location as requested), participating in Planogram meetings, developing new assortments for new concepts or stores, etc.
• Work closely with Planner to manage allocation, reorder flow, and product lifecycle including promos, markdowns, transfers and RTVs.
• Regularly attend industry tradeshows to source new vendors, meet with existing vendor partners, and identify emerging trends.
• Supervisory duties; hiring, terminations, performance management, training and coaching of departmental staff.