Buyer - Seasonals (6 month FTC)

Job description

About the team

Our Seasonals team brings some of Argos' most exciting and customer-loved moments to life, from year-round gifting to the products that make Christmas feel special. Sitting within Argos Commercial & Digital, the team works closely with Merchandising, Design, Product Development, Global Sourcing, Digital, Marketing and suppliers to create relevant, competitive ranges that deliver for customers and the business.

More about the role

As Buyer for Seasonals, you'll take ownership of assigned ranges across Events & Gifting, translating the category strategy into a customer-focused proposition that delivers profitable growth. You'll manage range selection and architecture, pricing, supplier activity, forecasts and promotional plans, using sales, margin, stock, availability, digital and customer insight to guide your decisions.

A major focus will be progressing the next Christmas range towards January sign-off. You'll work with Design, Product Development, Global Sourcing and the Assistant Buyer to develop products and build ranges across areas such as trees, decorations and lighting, while also trading the current Christmas offer. You'll manage supplier relationships and negotiations, collaborate with Merchandising on budgets and forecasts, and adapt plans in response to performance, market trends and competitor activity.

More about you

You'll bring buying experience and evidence of making commercial decisions for a product range. You'll be comfortable interpreting multiple data sources, including sales, margin, stock, customer and competitor insight, and turning that analysis into clear range, pricing or trading actions.

You'll also have experience of working with suppliers and cross-functional teams to deliver plans against agreed measures. Exposure to both own-brand product development and branded ranges will be important. If you are currently an Assistant Buyer, you will need to demonstrate that you have already led decisions and deliverables at the level required to step into a C4 Buyer role.

Essential criteria

• Buying experience with direct accountability for a product range, or Assistant Buyer experience with evidence of independently leading commercial decisions.
  

• Evidence of using sales, margin, stock, availability, customer and competitor data to make range, pricing or trading decisions against defined targets.
  

• Experience of developing both own-brand and branded product ranges, including product selection and collaboration with design, product development or sourcing teams.
  

• Experience of supplier management and commercial negotiation, including pricing, promotional funding or supplier performance targets.
  

• Evidence of delivering a range or category plan through cross-functional stakeholders in a retail or other complex multi-channel environment.
  

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We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you'll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there's always the chance to try something new-whether that's as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we'll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury's every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks' pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks' pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).