Buyer, Retail

What You’ll DoBuying & Assortment

Lead the seasonal buying process across footwear, apparel and accessories.

Develop seasonal assortments using sales history, market trends, customer insights, product knowledge and commercial analysis.

Recommend product, model, colour and SKU selections within each category.

Develop seasonal bookings and recommend appropriate buy quantities.

Identify gaps and unnecessary duplication within our assortment.

Evaluate new products and brands and recommend where Black Toe should invest.

Balance proven core products with newness, innovation and emerging opportunities.

Continuously evaluate SKU, brand and category productivity.

Recommend where we should increase, reduce or exit inventory investments.

Ensure the assortment reflects Black Toe’s performance-running positioning while serving runners across a broad range of abilities and needs.

Seasonal & In-Season Buying

Lead the buying components of supplier seasonal line reviews.

Manage supplier performance through Supplier Score Cards, and regular reporting on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Continuously drive supplier excellence, to ensure the Right Product is delivered On Cost, On Quality, and On Time.

Manage day-to-day product and buying discussions with supplier sales and merchandising teams.

Make in-season reorder and buying decisions within established plans and budgets.

Identify winning products quickly and pursue additional inventory where appropriate.

Identify underperforming products early and recommend corrective action.

Identify opportunities related to product availability, allocations, markdown support and returns-to-vendor.

Create Purchase Orders (P.O.s) and ensure buying decisions are accurately reflected in our systems.

Partner closely with the Inventory Manager to address availability, inventory imbalances and emerging inventory risks.

The Opportunity
Black Toe Running is looking for a  Buyer  to lead the day-to-day buying and continued development of our product assortment across footwear, apparel and accessories.

This is an important commercial and product role within Black Toe. The Buyer will have significant responsibility for product selection, seasonal buying, in-season decisions, assortment performance and helping determine where we invest our inventory dollars.

Working closely with Black Toe’s owners, you will combine strong product knowledge with sales data, customer insights and commercial analysis to help us answer some of our most important buying questions:

What should we carry? How much should we buy? Which products deserve greater investment? Where should we reduce our exposure? And how can we continuously improve our assortment?

You will have considerable autonomy over day-to-day buying and assortment decisions while partnering with ownership on major assortment, brand and inventory investment decisions.

Running footwear represents the largest part of our business, so a strong understanding of footwear, the running consumer and the broader athletic marketplace will be particularly valuable.

You will work closely with our Inventory Manager, Retail Operations, Marketing, Ownership and Brand Partners, bringing a strong product and commercial perspective to the business.

Commercial Performance
Use data to continuously evaluate the performance of our buying and assortment decisions, including:

Sales

Gross margin

Sell-through

GMROI

Inventory turns

SKU productivity

Brand and category productivity

Markdown exposure

Aged inventory

Develop regular product, brand and category performance reviews and communicate key findings, opportunities and risks to Ownership.

Use historical performance and forward-looking market information to improve future buying decisions.

Follow buying decisions through to results and adjust quickly when actual performance differs from expectations.

Product Expertise
The Buyer will be a  key internal Subject Matter Expert on running footwear and apparel, product technology, category trends and the Black Toe assortment.

You will:

Develop deep knowledge of the products within our assortment.

Stay current on developments across running footwear and apparel, and the broader athletic marketplace.

Attend supplier…