Assistant Buyer

**About the role**

**Assistant Buyer - Plumbing, Cooling & Heating**

**12 Months FTC**

**Up to £40,000 + Bonus + Pension + BUPA + ShareSave + 6.6 weeks holiday + Hybrid Working**

**Southampton, Store Support Office**

We believe anyone can improve their home to make life better. From our Southampton Store Support office (SSO) we equip our stores, our people, and our whole business with everything it takes to help our millions of customers create a home they’ll love. Join us as an Assistant Buyer and you’ll be a big part of this.

At B&Q we have a hybrid approach to working to increase flexibility in when and where we work. For this role we are looking for someone to be able to work from our head office 3 days a week.

**Key responsibilities**

Work with the Category Buyer to create and deliver an inspirational product range that meets the needs of our customers. Driving sales, margin (£GM & GM%) and market share across all channels, delivering vendor contributions, rebate and retail price index targets through strong vendor partnerships. Be responsible for the performance of specific sub categories and the relevant vendor relationships.
- Work alongside the Category Buyer to develop and implement a category proposition that meets our customer needs, identifying opportunities and mitigating risk, whilst delivering against sales, margin, and market share targets
- Support the sourcing and development of a compelling product range, through developing relationships with new and existing vendors, which reflect the category strategy
- Work alongside the Offer & Sourcing (O&S) team to shape and develop an own label proposition that meets the needs of our customers and market
- Support the buying process, with an awareness of impact on cross functional teams, allowing for flexibility adhering to a critical path, to ensure stock is ordered and delivered on time
- With the Category Buyer, support end to end vendor strategy management including contract and cost price negotiation, delivery of vendor contributions and annual performance review
- Gather insights to support the creation of the category pricing hierarchy in line with framework principles, supporting the Buying Assistant with inputs into the Minderest comparison tool
- With the Category Merchandising team, support the product lifecycle including range performance, identifying and optimising trading opportunities and the delivery of promotions and range reviews
- With the Visual Merchandising and Digital teams, support the creation and continuous improvement of customer journeys within our physical stores and online
- With the Buying Assistant, co-ordinate and execute the sampling process for range development, including QA and Lab set up requirements
- Work collaboratively with vendors, marketing and digital teams to support the acquisition and delivery of marketing assets for range and trading, including leading on brochures for the Category (where required)
- With the Buying Assistant, ensure all products and vendors are set up in line with agreed processes, with accurate complete data
- Use support tools such as Yammer to share category information and respond to queries
- Conduct regular store (digital & physical), competitor and vendor visits, to increase understanding of the market and support the creation of the trading plan and inform decisions - Manage and influence stakeholders across a range of levels, internally and externally, to support the delivery of KPIs
- Undertake other duties from time to time as may be reasonably required

**Required skills & experience**
- Previous experience of sourcing and buying product ranges
- Ability to understand customer insights and market trends
- Experience in vendor management and contract negotiation
- Strong communication and influencing skills
- Ability to build relationships at all levels
- Attention to detail to assist with issue resolution and problem solving
- Experience of managing projects and holding stakeholders to account
- Commercial and financial awareness
- Flexible and adaptable
- Proactive
- Intermediate Microsoft Office skills, in particular Excel and PowerPoint

**What's in it for me?**

As well as a competitive salary, our benefits package includes an award-winning pension scheme, bonus, ShareSave options, 6.6 weeks holiday, payroll giving, an Employee Assistance Programme, shopping discounts, colleague wellbeing benefits and lots more

As part of a great team, you’ll be supported to grow and encouraged to explore new career directions within the business and the wider group. And, because you’ll be inspiring great things for our customers and the whole business, you’ll do work worth caring about.