Careers of Retail Buyers; their Duties and Employment Prospects

Basic responsibilities of retail buyers is buying goods from the wholesalers and sale them to the public. Taking into account multiple factors in performing their duties, they also keep a close watch on the market trend which is extremely essential for success of their endeavors.

Basic Features

Usually the retail buyers would take various factors into account such as –
Current inventory position;
Trend in the market of both sales and purchases;
Supply chain systems;
Basic requirements of customers; and
Analysis of what to buy and when and what to sale and when.

Objective of taking care of all these factors and issues is to ensure that the store maintains high image and reputation.

Career Prospects

According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics or BSL –
Employers would usually look for such candidates to become retail buyers who have acquired at least a bachelor’s degree;
However, employment of post graduate candidates are becoming pretty common;
Several academies are offering advancement certifications and they could come up handy during job search.
It is expected that the jobs will increase by 7% during the period from 2008-18. Thus the hiring positions will not vary to a large extent during the period.

Working Environment

Retail buyers will usually work 40 hours a week and in large companies the time span could be greater. In addition, they have to spend a lot of time traveling inland and overseas. Normally, they would be hard pressed for time.

Job Description & Duties

Retail buyers’ work for large, small, and medium enterprises but the basic feature of their job is to select the product or services on which they would operate. That is why they are referred to as merchandise managers. Playing a major role in the distribution of goods and services to the customers, they are also often kept in charge of the shipping and receiving departments of the organizations.

Key aspects of the job are –
Decision making;
Perfect planning; and
Leading from the front.

To accomplish these objectives the retail buyer must –
Stay updated on the market trends;
Use Internet for overseas and bulk transactions;
Negotiations and formation of relationships with both wholesalers as well as the manufacturers are important part of their job.

Many quality academies are now imparting training and education for building up the career of retail buyer and the prospective candidate has to choose the best depending on his or her requirements and budget.