Assistant Buyer

Overview

As the Assistant Buyer, you will be responsible for providing support to the Merchandise Buyers by advancing the business while developing merchant skills, learning key business processes, and administrative tasks and responsibilities associated with the merchandise selection. You will aid in the strategic vision of the merchandising team while working cross-functionally with other departments to ensure that promotional planning work is completed across all channels.

Responsibilities

• Work under the supervision of the Buyer/Associate Buyer and support the selected Buyers team
• Perform the administrative functions supporting the buying team, including purchase order management while building foundational merchant skills
• Partner with Category Planner to identify and communicate with at risk and / or high visibility deliveries from 3rd party vendors
• Responsible for developing working knowledge of the buying function including merchandise selection, negotiating, pricing, and planning/marketing of merchandise
• Provide basic analysis of business data and reporting, as directed by the Buyer, including monitoring merchandise reports, stock analysis, and other ad-hoc reports
• Support merchant in the selection and purchase of product to augment planned assortments
• Communicate with Product Development, Supply Chain, Inventory, Marketing, Retail teams, and Vendors to provide information and solutions
• Assist in the planning and coordination of availability of products for advertising/promotions
• Develop effective relationships with vendors and follow up on business needs per Buyer / Associate Buyer
• Demonstrate basic product knowledge by sharing information with Buyer as a result of competitive shopping and tracking of the market trends
• Support Buyer in preparation of key business meetings such as vendor appointments and assortment planning
• Maintain calendar for assigned merchant team
• Occasional market travel for visiting vendors, attending trade shows, and retail location review of products

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business or Business Economics
• 2+ years Buying experience
• Prior experience in retail, supplement industry, consumer goods, and/or health and wellness preferred

Skills and Abilities:

• Strong strategic and analytic skills to grow the merchandising business
• Strong collaboration skills to partner with cross-functional teams and vendors
• Flexible, resilient, and adaptable to working in “grey areas” that constantly change
• Experienced in negotiating product promotional contracts and sales plan creations/executions
• Familiarity with Planograms and product assortment
• Extremely proficient in Excel, Outlook, Word, and Access
• Excellent verbal communication and effective written skills
• Strong organizational skills and attentional to detail

Equal Opportunity Policy

The Vitamin Shoppe is an equal opportunity employer. We respect diversity and accordingly are an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex, gender, gender identity or expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, physical or mental disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.  Our management is dedicated to ensuring the fulfillment of this policy with respect to hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, separation, recruitment, pay and other forms of compensation, access to facilities and programs, training and general treatment during employment.

We firmly believe that every Health Enthusiast has the right to be treated with dignity and respect. Our goal is to maintain a satisfied and productive team of Health Enthusiasts. The keys to reaching that goal are effective leadership, equal application of fair human resources policies, competitive wages and benefits, and close attention to all health enthusiast matters. The Vitamin Shoppe is committed to the principle of fair and impartial treatment of our Health Enthusiasts.

Health Enthusiasts with questions or concerns about equal employment opportunities in the workplace are encouraged to bring these issues to the attention of their Human Resources representative.  We will not allow any form of retaliation against Health Enthusiasts who raise issues of perceived discrimination in good faith.  To ensure our workplace is free of artificial barriers, violation of this policy may result in disciplinary action, up to and including discharge.