Job Opportunities at Park Cameras

Retail Buyer

The Company

Park Cameras is a leading independent specialist photography retailer, with state-of-the-art stores in Burgess Hill and central London. We aspire to sell great kit, at great prices, with honest advice and always with a smile. As well as selling the latest gear, we buy & sell used equipment and offer a wide range of photo printing services and photographic courses. We offer unrivalled customer service and superior product knowledge, maintaining a range of more than 15,000 new and used products with next-day delivery available through our fast-growing internet business. Established over 50 years ago and employee-owned, we now employ over 65 people and have won over 120 customer service awards.

The Role

Park Cameras is seeking an experienced hard goods/electricals retail buyer, not just your classic procurement responsibilities, but an opportunity to really own the whole trading proposition of key categories and suppliers.

Developing trading strategies to drive profitable growth online and instore across multiple sites. Reporting to the Commercial Director and responsible for development and growth of complete key categories across multiple suppliers, as well as dedicated supplier/account responsibilities.

The Person

Are you a smart, talented, and commercial buyer who is passionate about their role and looking to develop your career with a highly exciting and successful retail business. You will have 4 years retail buying experience that includes hard goods or electricals and a strong track record of driving profitable growth, across a mixed online/store trading environment. In return we offer a competitive salary, bonus, and profit share equal to £33k - £35k OTE.

Job Requirements and Skills

• Outstanding interpersonal, negotiation and communication skills
• Proven experience within retail
• Strong business acumen
• Results orientated - a strong focus on the achievement of targeted results
• Excellent organisation skills
• A keen eye for and experience of identifying opportunities for operational improvement and change
• Familiar with market research, data analysis, and forecasting techniques
• An interest in photography is preferred, but not essential
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office

Key Responsibilities

• Purchasing - negotiating the best price on purchases, ensuring timely delivery, agreeing favourable payment terms
• Supplier relationship management – developing and maintaining strong working relationships with external suppliers/third parties including negotiating terms of contracts and annual purchasing targets
• Stock control – maximising availability of key lines whilst minimising inventory, ordering stock in a timely manner, managing down aged stock
• Sales forecasting – working with online and offline channel managers to ensure company sales targets are met, producing regular sales forecasts
• Pricing – setting and competitive customer prices whilst maintaining targeted profit margins and responding to competitors’ price movements
• Range growth – Identifying trends and competitor products to grow width and new product opportunities
• Management/business updates – Regular review activity to update management team and the business on supplier performance trend/issues
• Budgeting and cash flow management – working with finance to ensure stock payments are within financial constraints
• Supplier support – working with suppliers to agree and claim financial support in a timely manner
• Event programmes – working with suppliers to agree and implement staff & customer facing promotional events
• Demand management – monitoring, analysing, and reacting to market fluctuations and changes in supply and demand in a timely manner
• Training - organising periodic training events for in-store and telephone sales teams
• Market analysis - analysing consumer buying patterns, product knowledge (including attending UK and overseas trade fairs to source new products), predicting future market and product trends and providing regular market insight to the SMT (review of market trend data gfk/futuresource to highlight opportunities)
• Marketing – working with marketing to ensure initiatives are executed and appropriate marketing spend is allocated to various promotions according to product profitability, generation of and participating in suppliers’ promotional activities
• General administration - including ensuring systems are accurate and up to date (including product adding, price lists, back-order reports, buying/selling notes)
• Planograms – Ensure stores are provided with accurate planograms to Park Cameras best practice for all relevant products (reviewed and updated every 6 months)