Experience

Morleys Department Stores Limited

• United Kingdom
• Retail
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Group Buyer

  • Apr 2017 - Present

  Group Buyer – Tabletop, Soft furnishings and Haberdashery· Responsible for buying and merchandising decisions for all stores, including planning and budgeting, markdowns, stock phasing and management.· Tasked with achieving a better stock turn and reducing stock holding whilst still managing core stocks in order to maximise sales. · Aiming to modernise our home departments by being more trend focussed, encouraging cross merchandising and delivering a more concept focussed homewares department. · Working with marketing in order to pull together concept photoshoots aiming to encourage our customers to buy in to a new style of home products. · Maintaining a great relationship with all suppliers, negotiating favourable terms in order to achieve the best intake and sales margin to achieve strong net profit results and beat targets.· Working with other functions such as visual merchandising to ensure the best representation of our range.· Introducing new products, trends and suppliers by attending trade shows, completing comp shops and industry research in order to be first to market to maximise sales opportunity. · Managing the home team to keep motivated and strive to always achieve targets.

• Group Buyer

  • Dec 2016 - Apr 2017

  Group Buyer – Childrenswear and Haberdashery· Reinstated to original position whilst buyer returns from Maternity leave. Extra responsibilty by assisting on Fashion Accessories. Allowing me to continue having some buying responsibilty and to keep my relationship with suppliers.

• Group Buyer

  • Feb 2016 - Dec 2016

  Group Buyer - Fashion Accessories Promoted to Fashion Accessories Buyer, responsible for buying Fashion Accessories within 7 Stores. Departments include Handbags, Purses, Footwear, Hosiery, Soft Accessories, Sunglasses and Umbrellas.• Responsible for buying and merchandising decisions for all stores, including planning and budgeting, markdowns, stock phasing and management.• Planning and monitoring OTB by brand, assessing how best to drive the business forward by identifying top vs underperforming suppliers and proposing new brands/brands to exit. • Buying and managing over 2000 options per season (AW16 – 2349, SS17 – 2065).• Working with up to 100 brands including; Longchamp, Aspinal of London, Furla, DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Lulu Guinness, Zac Posen, Rebecca Minkoff, Converse, Tommy Hilfiger, Fitflop, UGG, Guess, Marc B, Pauls Boutique, Love Moschino. • Maintaining a great relationship with all suppliers, negotiating favourable terms in order to achieve the best intake and sales margin to achieve strong net profit results and beat targets.• Introducing new products, trends and suppliers by attending trade shows, completing comp shops and industry research in order to be first to market to maximise sales opportunity.• Selecting the best and most commercial products for the customer, using sell through reporting, sales history and analysis to support the range building process.• Working with other functions such as visual merchandising to ensure the best representation of our range.• Managing and motivating the fashion accessories team. Key Achievements• Negotiating better discount terms from key suppliers in order to get a better intake margin.• Successfully refurbishing and relaunching new departments in four stores.

• Group Buyer

  • Aug 2014 - Feb 2016

  Group Buyer – Childrenswear and HaberdasheryResponsible for buying Childrenswear, within five stores. Covering Baby, Gifting, Girls, Boys and Footwear. •Last year's results sales +49%, LFL +9%. This year so far sales +40%, LFL +1%•Option growth, SS16 – 529 / AW16 – 905 options •Taking full responsibility to monitor sell throughs and plan OTB, splitting spends through each category and brand. Identifying which brands to continue working with, which to grow or decline. •Buying brands including; Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Gant, Ugg, Hunter, Converse, Petit Bateau, Benetton, Joules, Esprit, Bestseller brand Name it and many others. •Monitoring and maintaining sales, supplier terms, margin and markdowns making commercial decisions to run a profitable department. Always working on better terms from suppliers and working closely to increase intake margin and in turn help critical margin.•Maintaining a good relationship with suppliers and sales representatives, monitoring sell through to discuss markdowns funding, SOR offers and extra discounts. •Planning and launching Childrenswear departments into two stores, expanding from three stores into five. Liaising with the visual teams, marketing and suppliers to plan a successful launch. •Buying for an established craft and haberdashery department within eight stores. Covering wool, haberdashery and craft books. Identifying new trends for a new younger customer in the craft market, introducing new product areas such as paper crafting. Key Achievements•Increasing the intake margin by 2.05% in 2 years•Increasing profit by 42.5% in 2 years

• Group Buyer

  • Sep 2013 - Aug 2014

  Group Buyer - Childrenswear Buyer (maternity cover)Promoted to maternity cover Buyer for Childrenswear in three stores. Responsible for buying, Baby, Baby gifting, Boys, Girls and Footwear. • Organising and planning buying appointments with suppliers, planning spends, monitoring sales and markdowns to maintain a profitable department. • Identifying which brands to expand and which to decline whilst always making the most commercial decisions in order to meet business targets. • Continuing as Assistant Buyer on Fashion Accessories, responsible for sunglasses, gifting within Accessories and the full Fashion Accessories department for one store.

• Assistant Buyer

  • Jan 2013 - Sep 2013

  Assistant Buyer - Fashion AccessoriesJuly 2013 – Promoted after success of assistant buyer position to buyer for all Fashion Accessories departments for one store, including; hosiery, handbags, purses, warm shop, footwear and gifting.• Responsible for buying own areas; Hosiery, sunglasses and gifting within Accessories. • Maintaining an open to buy and markdown budget to ensure spends and stock are correct. • Monitoring figures to make decisions on how to respond to sales, e.g repeat on bestsellers, plan promotion or markdown activity for slow sellers.• Attending buying appointments with the buyer, brands including; Longchamp, Hugo Boss, Love Moschino, Ted Baker, Radley, Superdry and many others. • Completing competition shopping trips and reports, including SWOT analysis info. • Supporting in all other administrative areas.

• Buying Assistant

  • Apr 2012 - Jan 2013

  Buying Admin Assistant - Fashion Accessories, gifts, lingerie, menswear, womenswearTransferred to the Fashion Accessories department to help a new buyer. Taking more responsibility to make decisions on trade in season, repeat ordering and inter-group transfers. • Reviewing weekly sales to monitor best and worst sellers, included in a trade meeting to discuss sales against last year’s figures and target figures.• Assist the buyer in building a balanced and profitable range, creating and maintaining pre buy spreadsheets, e.g. buy against sales information, past season sales information. Using information to help the buyer negotiate terms with suppliers. • Providing effective administrative support for buyers, processing orders accurately, imputing data, updating and amending systems. • Liaising with suppliers, coordinating deliveries ensuring all deadlines are met, keeping our system updated with order status etc. Liaising with store dispatch departments to ensure deliveries are taken in on time, and errors are corrected in a timely manner.

• Buying Assistant

  • Apr 2011 - Apr 2012

  • Working closely with the buyers for Menswear, Ladieswear, Childrenswear, Lingerie, Cosmetics and Perfumery. • Providing effective administrative support, processing orders accurately, imputing data, updating and amending systems. • Liaising with suppliers, coordinating deliveries ensuring all deadlines are met, keeping our system updated with order status etc.• Liaising with store dispatch departments to ensure deliveries are taken in on time, and errors are corrected in a timely manner. • Organising figures for Monday meeting, compiling sell-through information and end of season sales figures.