Associate Buyer
: Job Details :

**Associate Buyer**

Macy's New York, NY, USA Posted 2 days ago Full time IT Services and IT Consulting,Retail Apparel and Fashion,Retail **About**Macys is proudly Americas Department Store. For more than 160 years, Macys has served generations at every stage of their lives. Customers come to us for fashion, value and celebration.

Macys Merchandising curates the best national and private brands to support our customers self-expression from off-price to luxury. Merchandising ensures Macy's is the premier fashion authority using a high acumen for products and trends as well as strong relationships with vendors in the marketplace. Our team maximizes sales and gross margin for each product category by identifying, procuring, and assorting the products that our customers demand.

**Job Overview**

The Associate Buyer is responsible for driving sales, margin, turn and growth across both channels for a defined area within the Buying Directors total area of responsibility. This position will support the Buying Director in developing and executing a strategic vision, with a progressive, customer centric-approach all while delivering on sales and profit objectives. This role requires the ability to leverage technical expertise to identify opportunities and develop assortment strategies. A fundamental requirement is to be able to build trust with their teams and key collaborators. Perform other duties as assigned.IDEAL CANDIDATE PROFILE

The Associate Buyer will be known as a trusted, collaborative and results-oriented leader, business partner and change agent who can lead through influence and who possesses professional maturity and industry credibility. The ideal candidate needs to be comfortable and effective leading through significant complexity. Candidates must be comfortable with quickly evaluating and sun-setting legacy approaches that no longer align to the strategy. The ideal candidate will be known for both vision and an equally strong orientation for speed.

**The Successful Candidate Will**

* Make company first decisions

* Ability to influence partners

* Actively influence market to drive business

* Develop self by participating in ongoing professional development and training

* Seek out innovative solutions to existing customer and/or Company challenges

* Communicate with candor and value open debate to ensure the best ideas come to life

**Essential Functions**

* Able to develop, plan, present and execute strategies.

* Make all purchasing decisions independently of Buying Director that satisfies the customer demand and achieves sales, turn and margin plan.

* Understands competitive marketplace and pursues white space opportunities that align with North Star Strategy.

* Competitive shop and determine action necessary to address competitive challenges. Identify any product opportunities and provide suggestions and input in product development to vendor.

* Support Buyer to drive in season business effectively through influence of promotional strategies based on current business needs.

* Regular, dependable attendance and punctuality.

Assortment Vision, Strategy & Selection

* Attend Market appointments prepared with strategic assortment plans and an understanding of product to support customer preferences.

* Set the vision and determine call to action for assortment building opportunities in partnership with Planning, Fashion Office, and Digital teams.

* Collaborate with planning partner to develop and execute assortment strategy.

* Develop pre-season assortment vision that ties to company key priorities and insights from Digital and Planning Director counterparts.

* Partner with Financial Planning to ensure department level financial targets support assortment strategy.

In-season Forecasting & ROF

* Decide on in-season changes to make for the department and vendors based on sales, margin and turn forecast from Financial Planning.

* Support Financial Planning and Buying Director in building seasonal strategy components based on targets.

* Provide Buying Director with category, class and item performance analysis to assist in determining in-season item-level changes to make.

Relationship Building with Vendors, Pricing, Marketing & Visual Merchandising Site/Stores

* Maintain an industry presence that allows for connections, new business opportunities and ideas at Macys. Represent and support the Macys brand while maintaining this presence.

* First point of contact with Vendor Community, Marketing, Visual, Stores, and Pricing.

* Communicate with vendors to ensure timely collection of MDAs/markdowns/RTVs and partner with Financial Planning to ensure alignment with in season VMT input.

* Partner with Pricing team on Pricing strategy and in-season adjustments

**Qualifications And Competencies**

* Bachelor's Degree from a 4-year college or university

* 1-2 years direct experience

* Practices open and continuous communication, values keeping others informed, effectively presenting information in a clear, concise manner.

* Excellent leadership, facilitation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work across functional lines and at many levels.

* Ability to think creatively, strategically and technically

* Ability to work a flexible schedule based on department and Company needs.

* Knowledge of MS Office computer programs are required

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