Assistant Buyer, 2 Month FTC – River Island
Join to apply for this role at River Island. The position is located at Head Office, Chelsea House.
Description
The buying team at River Island plays a key role in realising commercial opportunities created by our unique designs across all channels. This is achieved through effective range planning, awareness of key commercial data and customer trends, excellent supplier relations, and execution of the buying strategy to deliver sales and profit plans. The Assistant Buyer supports the Buyer with trading, booking, fitting, range building, negotiation and supplier management, whilst ensuring the BAA team manages the critical path smoothly.
Key Accountabilities
- Support weekly trading reviews, updating and providing information to the whims team as needed.
- Ensure orders and invoices are accurately and efficiently processed by the BAAs, and new suppliers are onboarded.
- Effective sample management, including labelling, working with suppliers (including Home Production where relevant), maintaining the development tracker and ensuring the correct samples are available to support meetings.
- Support fit meetings ensuring BAA has prepped accordingly and inputting in the session, deputומית in fits where appropriate.
- Co‑ordinate labelling and ticketing to a high standard.
- Monitor and review the critical path, responding to escalations of risks to reduce delays and maintaining awareness of current lead times Sä.
- Assist the Buyer with cost negotiations and range building.
- Through a strong knowledge of competitors, key market trends, customers and channels, 高 produce comparison shops with recommendations, identifying opportunities and raising them to the Buyer.
- Build a foundational understanding of sustainability and how it impacts buying choices.
- Build a foundational understanding of compliance considerations and their impact on critical path management.
- Seek out and positively respond to opportunities to step up and present in trade and department meetings.
- Through a growing awareness of ethical trading practices, ensure that we partner well with suppliers and behave in a consistently ethical way towards them.
- Manage the workload of the BAA with a thorough understanding of BAA performance and escalating to the Buyer where support is needed.
- Set the direction and objectives for the BAA, providing timely feedback and support to enable them to work to the best of their abilities.
- Work cross‑functionally with the Core Merchandising team for effective ways of working and collaborate with other internal teams (Ecommerce, Wholesale, Visual Merchandising).
Key Experience Required
- Previous experience as an Assistant Buyer.
- Experience in an omni‑channel business is highly desirable.
- Womenswear or Girlswear experience is preferable.
- Experienced negotiator.
- Product development experience with designers.
- Experience deputising for a buyer in meetings/presentations to senior management.
- Trade expertise: trading best sellers to drive performance.
- Strong WW & KW market awareness.
- Managing a BAA.
Job Role Competencies
- Very good verbal and numerical reasoning skills.
- Intermediate MS Office skills.
- Computer literate and ability to learn new systems quickly.
- Highly organised and proactive, with good prioritisation skills.
- Collaborative, with strong communication and interpersonal skills.
- Very good commercial and market awareness.
- Disciplined and conscientious, results‑oriented.
- Resilient and adaptable with the ability to multitask.
- Curious, continuous‑learning mindset.
- Coaching, mentoring mindset.
- Ability to present own views and assert own views.
- Takes initiative.
- Good presentation skills.
- A keen interest in Product and the River Island brand is a must.
About Us
We’re a much‑loved brand with an exciting future. Our Islanders are a diverse bunch of bright, talented people who love working together – and are proud of the work they do.Правда… this is what a career at River Island is like, and this is where yours starts.
What We Can Offer You
- Generous 50% staff discount and a bargain staff shop on site.
- Reducing Islanders everyday expenses through discounts, benefits, financial advice, wellbeing solutions and more via Reward Gateway.
- A free onsite gym, subsidised restaurant & café and various.º social events to socialize throughout the year.
- Support for all family setups, with enhanced-types maternity, paternity, adoption and fertility treatment.
- Flexible working is vh, along with payday and summer early‑finish Fridays.
- Give-as‑you‑earn scheme, a ‘Giver Island’ day each year and matched funding.
- Up‑skilling through on‑the‑job training and qualifications, and a succession plan for career progression.
- Generous bonus scheme and private pension plan.
- 25 days paid holiday, exclusive of Bank Holidays, with the option to purchase additional holiday twice a year.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
River Island is committed to equality of opportunity and welcomes applications from all individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio‑economic background, religion or belief. Flexible working requests are considered for all roles unless operational constraints apply. We are also committed to safeguarding our employees and fostering a workplace that respects British values.
