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Senior Buyer, Women's Footwear
DSW
Columbus, OH, United States
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Location Name: Home Office, Columbus
Department: Buying/Merchandising
At DSW, we believe in the power of shoes. We understand shoes bring out something great from within, and since 1991 we've been helping everyone feel the rush of finding that perfect pair. So when you work for DSW, you become a part of all that. A family whose core values are comprised of passion, accountability, collaboration, and humility. You become one of us, You become a Shoe Lover!
Overview
The Senior Buyer will work closely with the buyers and associate buyers to identify priorities, set goals and create action plans to execute against them. This person will need to be able to think outside the box and problem solve for the execution against the plans to be effective. This person will lead an omni-channel team and need to motivate, inspire as well as provide leadership and training to others. The Senior Buyer must be a team player who can work closely with the DMM to strategically drive their business. The Senior Buyer is accountable for their category sales and gross profit generation to meet company requirements. The ability to prioritize to drive sales is critical. In addition, this leader will help to foster an environment that promotes personal development of merchants and their businesses. Must represent strong long term succession planning potential. In leading by example, this individual will cultivate high morale amongst their team through mutual respect, integrity, and transparency.
Primary Responsibilities:
• The Senior Buyer must live in the details of the business. A hands-on leader who gets involved and contributes. They not only oversee, they do
• Ensures that the assortment is a balance of newness, exclusives, key items crafted to meet our diverse regional and omni needs
• Builds and executes seasonal assortment plans to effectively achieve the financial goals of the division including pre-season financial plans, in-season projections, open-to-buy dollars and category budgets
• Leads, evaluates, and delivers new brand initiatives and trend assortments, while maximizing margin and turnover opportunities
• Reviews sales and inventory with Merchant & Planning and Allocation teams and approves that plans are sufficient to drive sales and profit
• Collaborates with team members and outside resources to maximize speed to market
• Develops and approves seasonal merchandise assortment to improve category depth and breadth. Creates product pricing strategies, merchandising and flow strategies based on current data, trends and forecasts as it relates to margin opportunities.
• Leads maintenance and trending categories and key items via test strategies. Ensures adequate transitional quantities and timing of flow on basic and seasonal programs
• Stresses the importance/use of high level analytics. And, how to balance data with trends and merchant instinct to drive growth
• Develops, maintains and participates in vendor partnerships while executing negotiation strategies relative to exclusives, product costs, to maximizing margin opportunities. Ensures regular review of inventory is executed, including merchandise on order
• Builds an effective Merchant staff; participates in hiring and succession planning, provides coaching, assures that training needs are identified and fulfilled, establishes high performance standards and measurements, and provides feedback regarding performance. Elevates the team. Makes other around them better. Constantly pushes for success
• On-going management of business strategies to ensure financial goals are achieved.
• Accountability in delivering results
Critical Competencies
• This senior executive will be an innovative merchandising leader with a track record of success. Must be a proven “business grower”
• He/she must be creative, thought provoking, demonstrate a firm understanding of key financial and other performance metrics and be able to work cross-functionally
• He/she must be results driven, ensuring short term goals are achieved that support long term initiatives with a sense of urgency
• He/she must demonstrate both thought leadership and execution savvy and the ability to work with a variety of constituents
• Has the capacity for analyzing data that is essential in growing the business/category relevance within a changing consumer landscape
• Strong Financial Acumen
• Strategic Thinking: Strong strategic ability. He/she will possess both a keen attention to detail and a strategic/creative vision to formulate and achieve overall merchandising strategies within a complex, multi-billion dollar enterprise. Strategic, analytical and intellectually aggressive, he/she has a track record of leading merchandising initiatives. This executive has a track record of assessing preparedness for the immediate challenges ahead, regularly reviewing operational performance vs. expectation, taking corrective action when required, and managing to financial and operating metrics
• Humility: He/ She are a student of the business. They realize that they are creating merchandising strategies in a fast past changing retail landscape. They must assess the past with a key eye on the future gathering information from internal as well as external sources
• Catalyst for Change: This person does not accept the status-quo. They are a champion for change
• Collaborative Leader: With a team-oriented style, the candidate is someone who has strong interpersonal and judgment skills and can create enthusiasm within the team. He/she has the presence and credibility to win support and buy-in. He/she possesses a sense of urgency, leads by example, and has a track record of mentoring and coaching talent. He/she is able to engender enthusiasm, creativity and teamwork to elicit results from others
• Strong Interpersonal Skills: He/she will possess strong written and verbal communications skills and be equally effective in both formal and informal settings with senior executives, peers, business partners, vendors and other constituents. He/ She have strong executive presence. He/she has a quick intelligence, and adapts and responds to inquiries and questions. The individual is polished in his/her personal presentation, confident and outgoing, with good intuition, tenacity and a passion for merchandising that permeates his/her communication style
Additional Qualifications:
• A thought leader, someone who has demonstrated success at combining creative and strategic initiatives with well-grounded practices designed to move product, brand and corporate initiatives forward
• A collaborative individual who is motivated by working effectively with others and forging consensus.
• Ability to adapt to a rapidly changing, fast paced work environment
• Results-driven manager who outlines and achieves specific performance goals by constructive “hands-on” leadership
• A team player who can interrelate and operate effectively with peers and other associates within a collegial, yet demanding, management environment
DSW believes that all persons are entitled to equal employment opportunities. We do not discriminate against any protected class including race, color, religion, religious creed, gender, sex, national origin, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (defined as genetic information or impairments related to cancer), ancestry, marital status, family care leave, military and veteran status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, or based on any protected category under federal, state, or local laws. DSW also makes reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants and associates with disabilities unless doing so creates an undue hardship, in accordance with all legal requirements. Any applicant requiring a reasonable accommodation during the application process or applicant who requires an accommodation to perform the essential functions of the job should request for accommodations by asking to speak with a Store Manager, District Manager, and Regional Manager, or by contacting Human Resources at HR-DSW@dswinc.com. DSW will work with the individual to attempt to identify a reasonable accommodation that will not impose an undue hardship on DSW.