Junior Buyer Footwear Brands 12 Month FTC

Our collaborations with some of the world's biggest brand names are helping us to reach an even broader audience. From exclusive collaborations with Adidas to brands we own like Jaegar, join our expanding team of fashion curators, and shape the future of M&S Clothing & Home.

As we accelerate the transformation of our business to suit the changing needs of our customer, we need results-orientated colleagues that not only have a passion for our product, but a strong team working ethos, creativity and a healthy commercial aim to join us on our journey.

Please note this is a 12 month FTC.

What you’ll do…

As the Footwear Branded Junior Buyer you will be working closely with our 3rd Party Brand Partners to create the optimum product assortment that exceeds customer expectations.

Key accountabilities and measures

• Create positive partnerships with our brands, establishing strong direct relationships quickly and leveraging these to develop a long-term benefit to M&S. Build strong relationships internally and externally to train, engage and equip all relevant parties with the information and guidance to effect successful and commercial trading partnerships.
• Act as the key interface with all brands to deliver the best product choice, customer experience and ensure ease of working across all key retail levers: - selection, availability, supply chain, operational efficiency, and marketing.
• Ensure product selection and size of offer adheres to key principles of price stretch, range scale and choice that compliments M&S Brands and customer aspirations.
• Be the ambassador of the brand internally by liaising with cross functional departments including retail, supply chain, e-com and marketing to ensure all operations runs smoothly.
• Constantly monitor sales and range offering to ensure commercial and customer aspirations are potentialised, liaising with brands to curate and amend accordingly. Ensure business units are regularly and succinctly updated with progress, status, and learnings, allowing for feedback and input to be incorporated.
• Accountable for ensuring all contractual, business process, business plans and critical paths are shared, up to date and complete. Work with Legal, Finance and C&H Business Units to deliver this.

Who you are…

Your skills and experience will include

• Experience of working in branded Footwear to Assistant Buyer or Junior Buyer level, with a strong product affinity. Understanding customer appeal and product and how this will complement the M&S brand is critical.
• Strong relationship building and communication skills to foster collaborative and effective engagement with brand partners.
• Open to change and playing an important role in establishing the adoption of 3rd Party Brands within the complex and evolving M&S world
• Appreciation of internal cross functional departments and key interactions required to establish integrated processes and ease of working - ability to make things happen across the business is critical in this role so being organised and tenacious will be key.
• Strong commercial acumen – understanding how price, margin and costs impact the Brand and M&S profitability
• Understanding and awareness of the competitor landscape, how this evolves and the impact on our brand choices regarding new brand development.

Everyone’s welcome

M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact.

We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.

If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.