Buyer - Based Exeter
Basic salary up to £29,000 depending on experience, plus 31 days holidays, pension, healthcare cashplan, discounts on travel, retail and gym and staff discounts.
Candidates will ideally hold a full driving licence and hold a current in-date passport
This is an exciting opportunity and for an entry level candidate who has some experience of working in a purchasing department as either an Administrator or Assistant Buyer and is looking to progress their career as a Buyer.
As a Buyer, you will be responsible for the sourcing and supply of specific products within the purchasing team to ensure that all stock is readily available to meet a varying sales demand without the need to carry excess stock.
As a Buyer you will have excellent communication skills, written and spoken with a good commercial acumen, good negotiation skills and the ability to use tact and diplomacy when negotiating.
Whilst this is predominantly an office-based role, you must be willing to independently travel to attend exhibitions and suppliers both in the UK based and overseas to mainland Europe, The Far East, South Asia and South America, typically three to ten days per visit.
Candidate Skills
- Ideally be working towards CIPS or be part-qualified
- Self-motivated with the ability to work on own initiative
- A high level of accuracy with a good eye for detail
- Have the ability to make decisions, meet targets and work to tight deadlines
- Willingness to learn and retain information quickly
- Possess excellent interpersonal skills and be able to effectively deal with people over the phone or face to face
- Possess good planning, organisational and time management skills.
- Have a good level of MS Office skills, particularly MS Excel, any experience of Microsoft Business Central would be advantageous
- Have an interest in tile design and colours to enable the right sourcing decisions to be made.
Duties
- You will be responsible for sourcing and monitoring a wide variety of products for distribution, retail, commercial environments and one-off contracts
- Contribute to the purchasing strategy and plan in line with the organisational objectives
- You will meet suppliers and negotiating price and terms of contract, develop and maintain relationships with existing suppliers and sourcing new suppliers for future products.
- Identify, sourcing and expediting of material for bespoke projects.
- Set quality parameters and ensuring products fall within acceptable guidelines and where necessary resolving product and supplier issues
- Undertake purchase order placement, material expediting in line with projected sales
- Manage stock in line with sales trends and reacting to changes in demand
- Processing relevant administrational duties, ensuring spreadsheets, databases and Microsoft Business Central are maintained
- Continue to utilise Business Central as the core tool within the role and help the wider team with the continuous development of Business Central.
- Manage new product samples and sample warehouse including presentation of product to relevant stakeholders.
- Liaise with other departments within the company to ensure products and/or samples are available within an acceptable time frame
- Identifying weaknesses in the product portfolio and proposing an appropriate course of action accordingly
- Maintain a constant interest and knowledge in general product developments and upcoming trends by visiting international trade exhibitions and UK distributors and sellers' showrooms.
- Minute taking in various departmental, inter-departmental and external meetings.
- Provide cover for the senior buyer and buying team during busy periods and absence.