Senior Buying & Category Assistant (12-months FTC) in Slough

Hi, we’re Bloom & Wild. We don’t just send flowers. We help our customers to care wildly. Caring wildly is celebrating the little things we all do for each other every day. Not just the big occasions. It’s being there for the highs. Stepping up for the lows. We care wildly about people and our planet. Which is why we’re so proud to be a certified B Corp™ – committed to making long-term positive change for our community, and the world around us.

Founded in 2013, our mission back then was to make sending and receiving flowers the joy that it should be, by harnessing technology, brand and letterbox delivery. We announced £75 million Series D funding in 2021 and that same year acquired bloomon in The Netherlands and Bergamotte in France. Together, we’ve fulfilled and delivered over 20 million orders (and counting!), making us the largest direct to consumer flower business in Europe. Now home to a family of 3 beautiful brands, we’re driven by our vision to create the destination for making life a little more thoughtful and beautiful. And we won't stop at flowers and plants. Starting with the Bloom & Wild brand, we’re expanding our gifting offering to other categories like cakes, candles and cocktails. This is all part of our ambition to build Europe’s #1 direct to consumer gifting destination.

The Range Team @ Bloom & Wild Group

We’re responsible for concepting, developing and launching our beautiful product ranges for all markets and platforms. What began as a range of just three bouquets of letterbox flowers, now spans an ever-evolving collection of flowers, plants, gifts, addons and much more. We care wildly about curating a thoughtful range of gifts that our customers will be proud to send, and love to receive. We collaborate with many teams across the business to support our ideation and decision making; from gathering customer insight and research with BI, creative design with our Creative team, to unit economics with Finance, and execution with our Supply and Quality teams.

This role reports to Jess, our Category Lead and would involve working on our non-horticultural range across a variety of categories including brownies, candles, cocktails and more.

What you’ll be doing:

• As a Senior Category Associate you will play an integral role in the range development process for our Non-Horticultural collection by providing administrative support for products from conception through to launch.
• Supporting our Non-Horticultural Category Launches across all markets:

• Requesting and collating supplier catalogues to support Range Team with quarterly range planning.
• Overall responsibility for managing and maintaining samples for range reviews, photography and warehouse testing.
• Co-ordinating range share sessions with wider stakeholders, preparing samples, note taking and follow ups.
• Supporting with document prep ahead of launches eg. Photography added to Range Plans, naming checks, warehouse docs updated.
• Scheduling range briefs for other stakeholders to prepare for launch eg. SKU Copy briefing, photography timelines.
• Carrying out product checks when SKUs launched - correct name, pricing, photography etc.
• Supporting across a breadth of category and buying admin tasks, including:

• Building our network of potential partners by managing our prospective supplier database and acting as the first point of contact for new leads.
• Triaging range questions from suppliers and ensuring any actions are carried out.
• Keeping category information and insights clearly documented and up-to-date to enable stakeholders to self-serve as much as possible.
• Owning competitor analysis and tracking, identifying areas of opportunity for innovation.
• Inputting and supporting on monthly/seasonal retros.

You’ll love this role if you…

• Possess excellent planning & organisational skills.
• Enjoy creating streamlined processes with great documentation.
• Can solve problems and tackle challenges with a positive attitude.
• Possess strong communication skills and are comfortable building relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Are reliable in driving forward projects independently.
• Are keen to develop skills in category planning and execution.
• Are capable of balancing a varied workload and prioritising tasks.
• Have an interest in the world of online gifting!
• Ideally have some experience in Buying/NPD, but this is not essential.

These are some of the skills and experience we think will enable success in this role, but please don’t worry if you are missing some of these. We’re committed to building a team made up of different strengths, skills and experiences, so if you’re excited about our values, passionate about what you do and would like to join us in doing things more thoughtfully, we’d love to hear from you.

Belonging @ Bloom & Wild

We know that we learn through our differences, and building a diverse team has always been central to creating the best experience for our customers. We value all backgrounds, perspectives, ideas and experiences, and encourage everyone to share their opinions openly within our caring and inclusive team. Our champions community actively advances our culture of inclusion and belonging, which is organised around 8 pillars of diversity. These cross-business networks offer additional opportunities for connection, education, support and celebration, and ensure that inclusivity continues to be embedded in our ways of working.

Our ways of working

We really believe in the power of connection. For us that looks different depending on the team you work in. Some of our teams work together in person every day, whereas others may connect in person every quarter. We also believe in flexibility that supports you, the work you do, and your team. How much you work from home and from our office depends on a balance of those needs, and you’ll agree this with your manager. Whether it’s through a shared project, a learning and development opportunity, or an afterwork social - we trust our teams to make the right decisions (for them and us) about where and how they work each day. We’re big on collaboration, empathy, knowledge sharing and growth, and our values drive our priorities every day:

• Lead change for good: we have the guts to try new things and step up to do what matters most.
• Think deeply, act swiftly: we make sure there’s thoughtful rationale behind our approach and always act swiftly to implement ideas.
• Care wildly: we pour care and creativity into everything we do and pay attention to the things that make a difference.
• Stay open, be curious: we’re open about what we’re doing and why, and we welcome challenges from each other.

Work that works for you

To care wildly for our customers, firstly we care wildly for our teams. We work hard to craft a culture of thoughtfulness and care, where there is a strong sense of inclusion and belonging, enabling all of our people to thrive and be successful each day.

Our perks and benefits include:

• Flexible working & work from abroad.
• 25 days holiday + your birthday + flexible bank holidays, & option to buy additional holiday each year.
• 1 Volunteering day each year.
• Enhanced family leave and a workplace nursery scheme.
• A flexible training framework for every stage of your career.
• Irresistible discounts on our products, blooms & subscriptions!
• Share in our success with a choice to take equity options from day 1.

For more information on our perks & bens, please see www.bloomandwild.com/careers.

Getting hired

We know that job searching can be daunting, and we want to do everything we can to ensure that your experience with us is a good one. Interviewing is a 2-way process, and we’re keen to answer all of the questions you have, so that you can be sure (and excited!) that we’re the right move for you. We believe in leading change for good, so if there’s anything that we can do to help you flourish throughout your application process with us, or if you have any feedback, please share this with us anonymously here so we can use this to improve your experience.