Job Description
Role Overview
- As a Buyer, you will be responsible for sourcing, negotiating, and managing vendor relationships with manufacturers and distributors.
- You will drive strategic purchasing decisions that align with sales trends, working capital constraints, and margin goals.
Key Responsibilities
Vendor Management:
- Identify, evaluate, and onboard a wide network of manufacturers, brand owners, and distributors.
- Build strong vendor partnerships to unlock better pricing, payment terms, and long-term collaboration.
- Negotiate contracts covering supply, delivery, returns, expiry handling, credit terms, and rebates.
Strategic Buying & Demand Planning:
- Collaborate with sales and data teams for product selection, demand forecasting, and replenishment planning.
- Implement automated reordering models based on historical sales and seasonality.
- Ensure optimal inventory availability while minimizing overstock and working capital impact.
Commercial Optimization:
- Drive profitability by maximizing margins and backend incentives like volume rebates, slotting fees, and co-marketing support.
- Set pricing structures in collaboration with finance and marketing teams.
- Constantly benchmark suppliers for cost competitiveness.
Catalogue & Assortment Management:
- Develop and manage product catalogs, ensuring high quality, accurate SKUs, and categorization.
- Expand assortment based on customer insights, regional trends, and whitespace opportunities.
- Remove underperforming SKUs and manage lifecycle planning of products.
Compliance, Audit & Risk Management:
- Ensure all supplier transactions comply with statutory, audit, and tax standards.
- Manage risk with diversified sourcing, credit vetting, and legal contracts.
- Monitor supplier performance via SLAs and implement penalties for non-compliance.
Budgeting & Financial Stewardship:
- Plan procurement budgets and align with finance to ensure discipline in working capital usage.
- Track purchase spends, forecast cash flow impact, and analyze purchase-to-sales ratios.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Coordinate closely with warehouse, logistics, marketing, finance, and product teams to ensure seamless execution.
- Support launch of new geographies by activating local vendor networks.
- Feed procurement data into systems for end-to-end visibility.
Tech & Reporting:
- Maintain and update purchase dashboards, vendor performance reports, and price fluctuation trackers.
- Leverage tools like ERP, BI dashboards, and procurement software to automate buying workflows.
Qualifications & Requirements
- Candidates should possess a Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, or related field. MBA is a plus.
- 6+ years of experience in procurement, buying, merchandising, or sourcing roles; B2B, FMCG, or e-commerce experience preferred.
- Strong negotiation and commercial acumen.
- Deep knowledge of tax, compliance, contracts, and vendor management.
- Proficiency in Excel and familiarity with ERP tools.