Head of Buying, Rough Trade Retail (EU)
Rough Trade is coming to Europe, on and offline.
This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced retail buyer to join a well established, independently owned retailer with a great reputation to lead our buying strategy & product offer across all categories in Europe.
Working with senior teams in the UK & DE, the Head of Buying is responsible for purchasing across all stores, categories and departments. The success of the role is measured on sales, stock turn and margin across categories and suppliers.
Rough Trade is uniquely positioned as a leading independent music retail brand, with a 40-year heritage, attributes this role will leverage and preserve whilst meeting all commercial aims.
Strong data analysis, excellent product knowledge, and great leadership skills are essential for this position. We seek a strategic, commercial and creative person who can work well in a dynamic, fast paced environment.
You will report directly to the EU Managing Director.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage & develop a team of buyers across suppliers and categories.
- Own the buying operations and processes. Work closely with colleagues in operations to ensure we maintain efficient processes to manage a large number of SKUs.
- Maintain & develop excellent relationships with suppliers to ensure we are achieving best possible terms.
- Maintain a consistent and professional line of communication to stores & other departments through intercompany communications.
- Report on performance of key metrics and underlying trends, challenges and opportunities to the Managing Director and other colleagues.
- Work with the E-Commerce & Marketing teams to plan and strategize upcoming promotions & sales incentives with the aim of building sales & margin
- Manage the team to ensure all product data is maintained to a high standard and that the metadata is being effectively used to maximize online sales opportunities.
- Own the company’s stock and purchasing budget with a keen eye on achieving stock turn and margin goals.
- Own the company’s co-op marketing sales and budget.
Experience & Skills
- 3+ years of experience in a senior buying position in a relevant category.
- Fluent in German and English
- Great relationship building and communication skills.
- Excellent with excel / google sheets. Able to extract, analyze and summarize large datasets efficiently and effectively.
- High level understanding and experience of Content Management, Inventory Management & Data Analysis systems.
- Extremely commercial with the ability to cut through large swathes of data to find opportunities.
- Thrives in a high paced environment.
- An excellent understanding of what Rough Trade is, who our customers are & what we can sell.
You will be the in-house expert for all things Retail Buying. Experience working at a senior level in a product-buying setting is essential.
You will be able to demonstrate a track record of developing a successful buying strategy & product offering.
Joining a people focussed business, your strong retail experience will be backed by great people skills. Your passion for retail and delivering success for the business will be self-evident, as will your commitment to develop your team.
This is a rare opportunity for a talented retail buyer professional to make a significant impact on the future growth of a rapidly growing business, to build a team and very much make the role your own.
Salary: € – based on experience & competitive with performance bonus
Department: Product / Buying
Locations: Berlin, Germany
Remote status: Hybrid Remote
