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Buying and Merchandising jobs are traditional retail job categories, however with the continuing
growth of organisations selling products online; these traditional skillsets are required very
much in a digital context. If you're a major online retailer, then you
are still required to try and buy the best products that match your customers' requirements
at the best price, sourcing the right materials, sourcing the right components, building the
right relationships with product manufacturers. As margins are increasingly squeezed, obviously
selling online means you don't have to have as many retail outlets traditionally, so product
margins and price margins become increasingly more important and that's why the need to
have good buying and merchandising managers within an organisation is become increasingly
more critical these days. Buying and Merchandising jobs are literally
one of the most important job areas within retail businesses these days.
The managers and executives in this space have such a huge influence on the future direction
of the company and can directly impact the current and future sales and revenue margins
for an organisation, principally because if they can source better products at a better
price then there's a better margin for retailers in the marketplace.
Particularly with the continuous growth in eCommerce, the need to sell more product to
more customers, it is one of the largest growing areas and there's a huge range of diversity
in the job and a really good opportunity for people who are looking to take up a position
in this area of digital. If you're looking to get into the space, if
you've just graduated or left school, then commercial subjects: business studies degrees,
eCommerce degrees, or marketing degrees will be very relevant to buying and merchandising
jobs. If you're already in the space, you're most
likely going to have previous buying or procurement experience.
Because of the importance of the role, you're really most likely to need to know about a
particular industry area or product group or product sector so that you'll have a very
good idea of the sort of suppliers that you want to talk with and negotiate with.
Previous relationships and being known in the market can provide you with a lot of advantage
in this kind of position. Just the diversity of products being sold
now over the web, across all industry areas, means that it is possible to find and build
yourself a niche within this area and, given the importance of the roles, the career progression
in this area is fantastic and you can really develop a sound long-track record within buying
and merchandising.