SUMMARY:

Results - oriented retail management professional with extensive experience in buying, sourcing and merchandising of multi store, e-commerce, and catalog businesses. Leverages unique skill-set in assortment and product development, strategic planning, financial forecasting, and business analysis to achieve goals and produce results. Consistently demonstrates professional integrity and self-motivation, while utilizing dynamic leadership style and strong communication skills to cultivate collaborative relationships.

WORK EXPERIENCE:

Buyer

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Delivered incremental sales, bottom line profitability and increased inventory productivity for twelve consecutive quarters.
• Curated, developed and sourced seasonally appropriate assortments and trend-right merchandise, which focused on the highest quality and value for our customer.
• Created seasonal trend direction for the Confidential /Home Furnishings Division, which included color, material, and fragrance direction.
• Extensive travel to source 1200 styles each year for our customers that included several international and domestic fairs and worked closely to build strategic vendor relationships.
• Recognized for strong vendor negotiation skills and cultivating those relationships to provide best prices to increase input margin.
• Recognized for strong skills in strategic thinking, trend direction, team building, employee development, and creating positive business relationships; both internal and external.

Product Development Manager

Confidential, Columbus, OH

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for the development and sourcing of all accessories for Confidential ’ assortments.
• Merchandise focus; bathing and spa implements, women’s accessories and apparel.
• Travel to domestic and international fairs to identify market new trends and investigate new and innovative fabrications.
• Develop seasonal color/trend direction then presented to Brand and Buying Leadership and discuss merchandise selection for upcoming themes.
• Trained and developed three associate developers who assisted in the merchandise sampling, sourcing responsibilities and each season’s hindsight of costs/margin goals.
• Partner with 20 strategic vendors to develop a speed model of development.
• Speed timing included high-definition sample review with overseas manufacturers and pre-positioning of core materials in order to decrease the manufacturing time to 6 weeks for 300 styles per season from concept to adoption.
• Collaboration with Design Department in the development and creation of style specifications which were used by vendor in development and sourcing.

Merchandise Planning

Confidential, Columbus, OH

Responsibilities:

• Develop assortment architecture of styles, cost, sales and margin plans while managing the production and buys with annual sales of $250 million and over 3000 skus.
• Successfully analyze, plan and execute sales, gross margin, inventory and turn goals.
• Strong skills in category development: assortment planning, sku-productivity, market research from competitive markets, seasonal marketing and promotional plans.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Visual Departments to grow and improve market share through effective seasonal promotional plans and store execution of seasonal themes. SAP, JDA, EP Planning and EDW Reporting database power-user.

Home Décor and Seasonal Buyer

Confidential, Charlotte, NC

Responsibilities:

• Recruited to Confidential to develop assortments based on seasonal trends to build Confidential 's brand from an item driven business to more a decorative based assortment utilizing my strengths in assortment architecture and financial planning.
• Managed the planning and allocation, and the distribution of all styles to stores.
• Collaborated with Marketing, Advertising and store planning with all visual merchandising, store layout and advertising plans.
• Grew private-brand contribution 100% and successfully sourced goods within first six months.
• Developed direct source plan for top classifications of merchandise to increase sales and margin and lower inventory, by passing domestic importers.
• Increased sales and margin by 20% over previous year and 15% over plan, while decreasing inventory and markdowns 10%.

Associate Buyer

Confidential, San Francisco, CA

Responsibilities:

• Assist in the merchandising and planning of Home Organizational departments of Hold Everything brand.
• Successfully analyze, plan and execute sales, margin, inventory and turn goals for stores, catalog and e-commerce businesses.
• Collaborate in the visual merchandising for all catalog and e-commerce layouts; including pricing/promotions to ensure profitable sales and bottom line profits.
• Promoted from Hold-Everything brand, to develop assortment architecture for West Elm brand launch, then promoted to work on the Confidential Home launch.
• Managed the merchandising and sourcing of entertainment and organizational items for new concept stores and catalogs.

Sr. Business Analyst/Buyer

Confidential, Hayward, CA

Responsibilities:

• Partner with the Senior Buyer and Merchandise Planning Manager to achieve financial goals through effective inventory management: Sales, Turnover and Contribution. Ensures financial performance against plan is achieved for all assigned classifications. Develop and execute classification/seasonal transition strategies.
• Planning and forecasting: Develop pre-season assortment plans in partnership with Senior Buyer to deliver sales, margin and inventory goals.
• Develop inventory and logistic strategies that maximize inventory productivity and consider all transportation expenses.
• Manage weekly receipt flow and monthly open-to-buy dollars. Responsible for all purchase order creation and vendor communications to ensure timely delivery of each season’s merchandise.

Business Analyst / Associate Buyer

Confidential, Plano, TX

Responsibilities:

• Determine seasonal trends/selling patterns through product analysis and market research.
• Develop strategies to alleviate inventory burden caused by slow moving merchandise.
• Partner with Catalog Manager in merchandise selection and pagination of seasonal catalogs.