Junior Buyer

About the roleWe have a great opportunity to join our Buying team:
Baby & Kids Own Brand - Permanent role

As a Junior Buyer in this area you will be a highly motivated person, who uses their knowledge to plan and buy the best ranges for our customers within the wider Fashion category. Your remit will specifically be to buy schoolwear, underwear and hosiery and to deliver agreed KPIs including; sales, profit, stock, margin and achieving required customer metrics and hit rates. You will analyse commercial input, market trend data to develop and bring to market, own-brand ranges that optimise opportunities to enable a competitive advantage.

Hybrid working

• Location: The normal place of work for this role is Pimlico, London

• We know flexible working is important to you, and it is important to us too. The buying team aims for at least 2 days a week in the office.The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business.

Key responsibilities

• Working with your Merchandiser, you will analyse commercial input and market data from all channels to develop a category assortment that appeals to the John Lewis & Partners customer base.

• Monitor Partner NPS and customer satisfaction metrics to gauge the impact of assortment decisions on overall satisfaction.While driving sales revenue growth through effective assortment planning and promotional strategies.

• You will work collaboratively with all relevant specialist functions such as Marketing, Online and Store Design to deliver a compelling brand portfolio.

• Be accountable for making decisions on the product assortment: development, sourcing, brand positioning, price structure and margins. These will be in line with category and customer strategy.

•  In collaboration with merchandising, you will need to make season trading and volume decisions along with the commercial terms and product lifecycle with the suppliers.

Essential skills you'll need

• Tangible experience in buying, product development, range building, and critical path

• Experience and passion for Own brand development

• Strong negotiation skills

• Demonstration of a collaborative approach across teams and great stakeholder management.

Desirable skills you could bring

• Category specific knowledge

External candidates can view the attached job description

• For internal use only:

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About The Partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note:

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting. If required, you’ll find out more about vetting throughout the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays.

We also recommend that you apply as soon as possible as vacancies can close early if we see a high number of applicants.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.