Buyer/Merchant
Mission: Deliver the World’s Best Luxury Beauty Buying Experience
Job Title: Buyer/Merchant
Company: Cos Bar Retail
Location: Corporate – Remote
Reports To: Senior Director of Buying
Classification: Exempt
Number of Direct Reports: 0
MAIN JOB OBJECTIVE
The Buyer/Merchant role is responsible for selecting the finest and most distinctive product in their area of buying responsibility in alignment with the overall Cos Bar merchandising strategy.
Reporting to the Senior Director of Buying, this role is responsible for Open to Buy management/purchase order writing, item management, 360 degree vendor management, merchandising and assortment strategies, sales/inventory data analysis, marketing and vendor negotiations to optimize and grow the business.
Additional duties include market travel, market research, competitor analysis, product evaluations and testing, and creating and presenting executive level presentations and reports for the management team.
Buyer/Merchant must possess a strong luxury beauty industry knowledge. In this role, you will leverage your expertise in buying and inventory management to optimize product selection, ensure alignment with the Cos Bar merchandising strategy, and drive profitability.
Buyer/Merchant will be instrumental in executing buying strategies that resonate with our elevated brand identity and enhance the customer experience.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
- Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- Develop and execute comprehensive merchandise buying and product plans that align with overall company strategy and objectives.
- Manage consistent and reliable vendor communication in a professional manner; hold consistent monthly, quarterly and seasonal check-ins. Evaluate vendor performance.
- Manage OTB and write PO’s in a timely manner.
- Oversee and execute item setup and management.
- Plan seasonal merchandise assortments and product launches.
- Monitor inventory levels and sales performance to ensure optimal stock levels and minimize overstock or out of stock. Manage replenishment to optimize stock availability.
- Analyze sales performance, inventory levels, market trends, and customer preferences.
- Identify opportunities for margin improvement and sales growth.
- Track product performance and adjust assortment strategies based on results to inform future buys.
- Collaborating with Planning to forecast new launch demand and support financial planning activities.
- Report on buying performance, producing actionable insights that drive continuous improvement.
- Negotiate terms, RTV’s/swaps, marketing/store support, and contracts with vendors that maximize margin and profitability.
- Attending and scheduling in person and virtual market appointments
- Collaborate with planning, marketing, operations, and store teams.
- Collaborating with marketing to develop co-op strategies and ensure best in class product experience on Cosbar.com
- Lead cross-functional teams in the launch of new products, ensuring alignment between buying, marketing, stores and operations.
- Conduct competitive market analysis and provide suggestions for new vendors.
- Analyze market trends, consumer preferences, and competitor strategies to inform purchasing decisions.
- Staying up-to-date on the latest trends and newest products in their industry.
Buying
- Product Selection & Assortment Planning
- Responsible for selecting the finest and most distinctive product in their brand matrix that meets the high standards of quality and best suits the needs of the Cos Bar client
- Develops and makes recommendations based on sales history and business analysis
- Conducts brand and market share competitive analyses, develops insights and recommends tests to Sr Director of Buying
- Identify and execute opportunities to create Cos Bar exclusive offerings and merchandising initiatives within own brand matrix
- Take the lead on improving upon company strategic initiatives such as sell thru, turn, sales to stock ratio and high margin within own brand assortments
- Own the OTB replenishment and newness launch cadence within brand matrix
- Own the item setup and PO writing process for brand matrix from top to bottom
- Item setup and maintenance
- PO writing
- PO vendor communication
- Ecomm assets + copy collection
Financial Planning
- OTB
- Understands and partners with Planning and Sr Director of Buying on OTB receipt requests and incremental sales opportunities for its own brand matrix to hit sales and EOM targets.
- Responsible for staying within OTB budget and communicating additional $ needs to Planning and Sr Director of Buying
- Ensure that appropriate inventory is allocated to support forecasted sales for products in their own brand assortment to minimize out-of-stock or overstocks.
- Partner with Planning on developing sales/receipt forecasting plans as needed for new or existing brands
- PO & Inventory Management
- Update price changes in systems
- Update item status in system based on Assortment Architecture and vendor changes
- Takes initiative to evolve the buying process to become more efficient by building upon forecasting tools and streamlining PO creation and onboarding process
- Sales Analysis & Reporting
- Analyze selling, category and vendor performance via Key KPI’s such as top sellers, turn, WOS, sell-through, stock to sales $ ratio and develop an action plan
- Be able to pull and assess data in order to provide compelling recommendations/feedback to executive leadership
Brand Management & Negotiation
- Responsible for negotiating and executing RTV’s and securing RA’s from brands and communicating to all cross functional teams
- Attend and schedule market appointments prepared with strategic assortment plans and understanding of products with a customer centric approach.
- Building and maintaining strong relationships with vendor partners within the brand matrix to drive growth and achieve company goals
- Communicate to vendor partners on consistent monthly basis regarding top/ slow sellers and areas of opportunity, key marketing initiatives.
- Partner with brands on SPIFF, GWP, store and marketing co-op strategies
- Negotiate buying terms and regular RTV’s to maximize profitability and turn
- Identify opportunities to consistently improve buying terms and conditions within matrix (RTV’s, markdown dollar support, sell thru agreements, high margin, swaps, DIF, MOQ, consignment, dropship etc)
Marketing & Merchandising
- Communicate new product launches, new vendors, new door expansions to marketing teams to ensure alignment across all channels and teams
- Identify white space from a luxury beauty marketing perspective and Ideate new marketing opportunities via instore events and digital content strategies between all cross functional teams
- Communicate key marketing campaigns to brands and secure additional support via co-op, GWP, sampling etc .
- Own new seasonal item setup calendar from brands
- Partner with Marketing and Vendors for product asset management to ensure best-in-class digital experience.
- Suggest in-store merchandising product strategies that ensure alignment with monthly marketing product focuses. Collaborate with vendors and marketing teams.
Work Environment
This job operates in a corporate office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets and fax machines.
Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear. This position is very active and requires standing, walking, bending, kneeling, stooping, and crouching all day. The employee must frequently lift and/or move items over 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.
Position Type/Expected Hours of Work
This is a full-time exempt position, and hours of work and days may vary depending upon business needs. This position regularly requires long hours and frequent weekend work not limited to holidays.
Travel
This position may require some travel based on business needs.
AAP/EEO Statement
Cos Bar Retail provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Cos Bar complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
Cos Bar Retail expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of Cos Bar’s employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.
Other Duties
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
PRINCIPAL SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, AND PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES REQUIRED
Education:
College Degree or equivalent
Work Experience:
- 5+ years of progressive beauty buying experience is required
- Experience in purchasing, procurement, supply chain, or inventory management.
- Strong negotiation and communication skills.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Attention to detail and organizational skills.
- Knowledge of inventory management and analytics tools
- Knowledge of market trends and consumer behavior in the relevant retail sector
- Vendor management
- Critical, proactive thinker with strategic mindset and ability to offer solutions
- A strong understanding of retail math, industry trends with the ability to translate them into relevant and innovative ideas that appeal to the Cos Bar customer
- Solid planning skills with experience managing an Open to Buy
- Strong negotiation skills
- Ability to partner and influence vendors/cross-functional partners to enhance in-store experience and space productivity
- Detail-oriented with excellent organizational skills
- Ability to prioritize competing deadlines in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
- Self-motivated and willing to go above and beyond
- Flexibility and ability to wear many hats
- Energetic with a positive attitude
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office and Google Workspace, especially Excel and Google Sheets. Candidates should have hands-on experience using VLOOKUPs (or similar lookup functions), building and analyzing pivot tables, and applying data manipulation formulas to clean, validate, combine, and analyze datasets for business reporting and decision-making.
COMPETENCIES REQUIRED
- Financial Planning literacy
- Managing and Measuring Work
- Customer Focus
- Written Communications
- Strategic Agility & Solution Oriented
- Team Player
- Previous buying experience (luxury retail preferred) and someone who is passionate about luxury beauty
- Good people and communication skills and a passion for luxury beauty, a high energy level, flexible, resilient, and positive.
- Strong Negotiation skills
- Be opportunistic and possess the ability to maximize opportunities through skillful inventory management.
- Solid financial skills, be decisive, have a good sense of urgency, and thrive in an ever changing environment
