Associate Buyer of Liquor

The Associate Buyer of Liquor position manages the execution and merchandising of products in the assigned categories. He/she strikes an effective balance between short term and long term initiatives and responds constructively to new demands, priorities and challenges. The Buyer ensures feedback from customers and business partners is leveraged to identify improvement opportunities and company initiatives and is responsible for supervising Buyer Assistant positions.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop and execute business strategy to maximize the profitability of assigned categories.
• Communicate and manage the vision of the organization/department and business needs to team and provide timely updates and information to team and team leaders.
• Research business and marketplace trends, analyze competitor products and customer needs to increase the company’s share of total market.
• Draw astute conclusions from financial reports and analysis. Understand critical issues and the patterns, trends and root causes.
• Partner with all levels to form and train merchandising team as the needs of the business dictate including Associate Buyers/Assistant Buyers.
• Manage financials including open-to-buy planning and total profit and loss in all areas of responsibility, includes managing pricing, inventory control, net margin, vendor profitability and total profitability.
• Prepare and develop, plan and implement pricing strategies
• Manage the entire cycle of a product’s trend curve by making effective tactical and strategic merchandising and marketing decisions.
• Strategically and appropriately plan and execute product assortment and manage the process of product evaluation and selection.
• Maintain strong partnerships with existing vendors and proactively source new vendors/suppliers.
• Troubleshoot irregularities with vendors and manage negotiations on key issues that include availability of new product, distribution of merchandise, timely deliveries, RTVs and vendor allowances.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 3-5+ years of retail buying experience preferred.
• Experience with LTC a plus.
• Experience managing and working with multiple vendors.
• Experience managing/planning large volume department with high volume of SKU’s.
• Experience of buying for a retailer with multiple outlets preferred.
• Experience in Travel Retail preferred.
• Experience in logistics a plus.
• Experience buying from sophisticated multi-nationals vendors required.
• Demonstrated expert level skills and knowledge required in negotiating, measuring key performance indicators and financial analysis, including Retail math.
• Advanced level skills in MS Excel and Outlook.