Buying Manager

Job Purpose

A high-volume retail operator is seeking a sharp, agile Buying Manager to drive a fast-turn, cash-first model. This is not a seasonal department-store buying role. It is closer to a supermarket or fast-fashion replenishment role with a trend radar: small frequent buys, daily sell-out checks, same-day reorders on winners, ruthless exits on laggards, and a constant feed of newness in the fast, high-margin categories that now drive the business.

The Buying Manager owns stock turn, sell-through and margin mix. Every buying decision is measured against one question: will it sell out in a week?

The model you will run

- Days of cover, not seasons . Orders are sized to 7–14 days of cover at current run-rate. Deep buys and six-month ranges do not exist here.

- Never out of stock on winners . Daily sell-out check on the top 30 SKUs; reorders placed the same day, doubled where the line is running.

- The one-week test . New lines are bought small and proven. Sell out in 7 days → reorder and scale. Not sure → half. No → don't buy.

- Range built in baby steps . The collectible wall grows by adding characters, sizes, price points and adjacent lines week by week — not by a single big range buy.

- Kill discipline. Anything that fails the test twice is exited and never reordered. Markdown money is treated as found cash.

- Cash awareness . You understand that every AED 100 sold splits into rebuy, old commitments and current commitments — and that stock which sits produces nothing for anyone.

Key responsibilities

Daily / weekly

• Run the daily sell-out and reorder cycle on the top 30 SKUs with local vendors.

• Weekly open-to-buy expressed in days of cover by category; weekly trade review (sold out / selling / not selling) with reorder and kill lists.

• New line selection and allocation sign-off weekly under the one-week test.

• Markdown and clearance decisions on ageing stock; RTV and credit note recovery from vendors.

Range and trend

• Build and continuously widen the fast categories. Ladder pricing from entry (AED 29–59) to core and hero.

• Trend radar: TikTok, Asia (Japan, Korea, China), US collectible market. First-to-Gulf on releases; drop and restock calendar run with Marketing.

• Monthly market analysis, regional and global, focused on what is selling fast and where.

Vendors and terms

• Develop and manage a local / in-country vendor base capable of restocking in days.

• Negotiate and annually improve margin, payment terms (30 / 60 / 90 days), rebates and exclusives.

• Maintain accuracy of master data, costs and pricing; formalize pricing and discount rules.

Team and cross-functional

• Performance-manage the buying team against sell-through, cover and margin, not against purchase volume.

• Work daily with Operations on space and facings, with Marketing on drops, and with Finance on cash routing from weekly sales.

Job Qualifications

Industry Background: FMCG category management, supermarket, convenience, fast fashion, or trend/value retail.

Mindset & Approach: Operates with speed and agility—comfortable making daily buying decisions based on live sales data and prefers being wrong small over being right slow . Unsentimental about stock, quick to kill underperforming lines, and never confuses order volume with success.

Trend Agility: Genuinely trend-literate; actively tracks moving trends across Asia, TikTok, and collectible culture, translating real-time demand into immediate buys.

Commercial & Financial Acumen: Numerate and self-sufficient in Excel. Fully fluent in rate of sale, days of cover, stock turn, sell-through, margin mix, and cash cycle dynamics.

Vendor & Stakeholder Management: Skilled negotiator who secures speed and flexible terms over simple unit pricing. Excellent English communication skills (Arabic is a plus) to collaborate directly across Finance, Operations, and Marketing.