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Buyer - Essentials
Currys London Campus at Waterloo
Fixed Term Contract - 12 Month FTC
Full Time
Grade 4
At Currys we’re united by one passion: to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. As the UK’s best-known retailer of tech, we’re proud of the service our customers receive – and it’s all down to our team of 25,000 caring and committed colleagues. Working as one team, we learn and grow together, celebrating the big and small moments that make every day amazing.
Positioned within the commercial team, you will be right in the centre of a fast-paced team, working hand in hand with the go to market team, building strong relationships with our supplier partners. As a Category Buyer you will be accountable for all supplier negotiations in line with the category strategy. You will select and negotiate product ranges and pricing, all terms and conditions, and all investments in our business and its activity. You are accountable for ensuring cost pricing allows us to remain competitive for customers while maximising EBIT return and securing adequate differentiation against competitors.
Within our Essentials team, you will support our Senior Buyer across a wide range of exciting products including PC, Tablet, Apple, Imaging, Whites & TV Accessories as well as working on our growing range of Impulse product. In this role your will interact with many major suppliers including Sandisk, Samsung, Logitech, HP, Microsoft, Duracell, Energizer, One For All and more.
You will need to have great relationship building skills, working closely with our supplier partners, the go to market team, Planning and Far East Sourcing team and use your influencing skills to secure support to drive the business forward.
Commercial acumen is a must as you will be required to support our analysis of trading performance, providing recommendations of actions to drive our business. Our ideal candidate will be organised and self-motivated in order to prioritise their work whilst having strong attention to detail to ensure everything is right first time.
As a Buyer you will be expected to support the development of an assistant/assistants ensuring we have a capable and committed team, who understand their role in delivering the company vision ‘we help everyone enjoy amazing technology’.
Key Responsibilities:
- Managing all category supplier relationships in line with our overall commercial supplier strategy and the category strategy
- Harness credible relationships with our suppliers and develop a sourcing strategy to both bring customers the best ranges, supported with availability but also to minimise our NET cost of goods
- Work with suppliers to develop a strong understanding of the future technology roadmap, enabling the category to adequately plan ahead for likely changes in customer trends and demand
- Negotiating product ranges – cost pricing, additional terms, exclusivity, distribution, stock availability
- Negotiating additional fixed and variable financial terms related to ranging, activity and performance – maximising EBIT across the category
- Negotiating promotional funding support to drive sales while maintaining margin in line with financial objectives
- Securing adequate product and promotional differentiation from competitors to support market share growth objectives
- Pricing the product range in line with agreed category CPI targets
- Working with the returns team to ensure adequate supplier returns agreements are in place contractually to both meet customer service requirements and minimise cost exposure after sale
- Work closely with the category planner to secure supplier support to drive additional sales and margin where opportunity for upside exists, and particularly to mitigate risks against committed financial objectives
- Working with merchandising to ensure that we are forecasting at the right level to maximise sales and stock turn
- Uses customer and market data provided by the go to market team to ensure correct ranges and promotional plans are in place to drive customers for life, improvements in market share and net profitability through development of exclusive products/plans where appropriate to address customer needs
- Working with the head of merchandising and central finance teams, ensures the claiming and tracking of income against trading account targets, ensuring all due supplier funding is claimed on time in line with contractual obligations
- Remedy all supplier issues relating to cost price, product, stock, financial claims, contractual issues and other
- Ensure supplier contracts are completed in line with the company DOA and pre-determined annual timetable
- Manage, coach and develop direct reports to deliver category targets and to ensure compliance with the Commercial critical path and processes
- Provide and regularly review team members’ objectives, priorities and performance via Personal Development Review and one to ones, supporting their professional and personal development
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Required Skills & Experience:
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- Buying experience working within a FMCG/Fashion or Hard Goods fast paced retailer
- Negotiation skills and ability to manage all supplier partnerships
- Good judgment and strong decision-making skills to enable the right actions for the category
- Excellent numerical and analytical skills to review data and provide recommendations/actions plans to drive sales, profit and cash
- Good planning, organisational and multitasking skills
- Excellent inter-personal and communication skills, capable of presenting to senior stakeholders as well as working cross functionally to achieve the desired results
- Customer champion with excellent commercial awareness and understanding of customer needs
- Good working knowledge of SharePoint, Teams, Excel, Word and PowerPoint as well as MS Office workflow tools
- Good presentation and speaking skills
- Monitor internal controls and make recommendations as needed
- Coaching/management experience
Why join us:
We know our people are the secret to our success. That's why we're always looking for ways to reward great work. You'll find a host of benefits designed to work for you, including:
- 25 days of annual leave (plus bank holiday entitlement) and a competitive pension scheme
- Private Medical Insurance
- Life Assurance
- Fantastic colleague discounts on Tech with Currys and iD Mobile
- Hybrid working (with an expectation to meet in person 2-4 times per month)
Join our team and we’ll be with you every step of the way, helping you develop the career you want with new opportunities, on-going training and skills for life.
Not only can you shape your own future, but you can help take charge of ours too. As the biggest recycler and repairer of tech in the UK, we’re in a position to make a real impact on people and the planet.
Every voice has a space at our table and we’re committed to making inclusion and diversity part of everything we do, including how we strengthen our workforce. We want to make sure you have a fair opportunity to show us your talents during our application process, so if you need any additional assistance with your application please email careers@currys.co.uk and we’ll do our best to help.
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