Junior Buyer

Posting End Date:

January 26, 2025

Join John Lewis or Waitrose today

If you've ever stepped through the doors of a John Lewis or Waitrose shop, shopped online, or seen any of our adverts, you'll know there's something unique about us.

That unique proposition is our Partners. As co-owners they have a say in our business and receive a share of the profits, so they put time and effort into making it work. Our Partners are the reason we're the success we are. They're our secret sauce; the opportunity for us to differentiate.

Job Summary:

We 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.

Job Description:

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:

• #LI-JLPJL

• #LI-REMOTE

• #LI-HYBRID

• #LI-HEADOFFICE

• #LI-SH1

Pay:

£30,200.00 - £45,400.00 Annual

Scheduled Weekly hours:

35

Worker Type:

Permanent Partner

Job Level:

Partnership Level 8

Hours of Work:

N/A

At the John Lewis Partnership, we embrace our differences. We want you to be you. Because, well, we know you're at your best when you're free to be yourself.

Being a truly inclusive employer to us means creating an environment which celebrates your contribution, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, social background, religion or belief. It's why we've set our own aim to become the UK’s most inclusive business - for our Partners (employees) and our customers.

We firmly believe that our future success lies in diversity of thought from all Partners and it's integral in our mission to build a happier world. 🌍 💚

We welcome applications from everyone interested in working for us. And, once you're a Partner, your differences will make all the difference.

Find out more about D&I in the Partnership here.

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 it is possible to do so. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.

- Apply