Assistant Buyer | Lookfantastic

THG Beauty / LookFantastic 

Lookfantastic is Europe’s No1 Online Destination for Premium Beauty. Our mission is to empower people globally to look and feel fantastic every day. To enable us to do this we have offices across the UK, Europe, America and Australia filled with passionate beauty fanatics who are committed to delivering rapid growth in this exciting industry. We work with over 800 of the world’s greatest beauty brands such as MAC, Kerastase, GHD, Tom Ford and YSL to bring our customers the widest offering of beauty products from around the globe. Passion, innovation and commitment are key characteristics in this ever expanding team as we strive to become the Worlds No1 Online. 

 

Purpose of Role:  THE ASSISTANT BUYER WORKS WITH THEIR JUNIOR BUYER  TO DELIVER CONTINUED SALES & PROFIT GROWTH, FACILITATING THE EXECUTION OF A STRONG JBP WITH EACH PARTNER   

 

Responsibilities: 

Brand Planning  

• Working with the Junior Buyer / Buyer to build, manage and deliver brand budgets  
• Helping Junior Buyer / Buyer build a best in market joint business plan to achieve business benefits including market leading promotions, first to market launches, exclusives and investment into promotional & marketing support to maximise performance. 
• Communicates key JBP activations by brand to site managers and marketing teams to ensure the successful execution of the JBP  
• Responsible for coordinating JBP activations including the set up and ordering of NPD and GWPs, setting live and taking down brand promotions, providing clear guidance to trading teams around the time, strength and included SKUs of any promotions and actively providing teams with marketing assets to promote brands across site  
• Works in close alignment with the lookfantastic and boutique site managers to ensure brands are well represented on site  
• Continuous monitoring and review of category performance to analyse sales patterns, taking into consideration competitor activations in the market. Advises relevant teams and ensures appropriate action is taken to unforeseen sales reactions. 
• Attends brand meetings alongside Junior Buyer / Buyer to offer support in meeting notes and feedback 
  
  

Reporting 

• Takes responsibility for demand planning by brand alongside merch team to ensure every brand always has the stock needed to maximise budget performance and any new additions to the range are ordered in a timely manner  
• Regular review and reporting of our pricing and competitive stance in the market by brand, highlighting to category manger and trading teams where we are not competitive and collaboratively strengthening our position.  
  
  

Strategy Development   

• Regular review and rationalisation of brands within category as well as working with team to conduct regular reviews of ranges within their brands  
• Keeps up to date with industry/market trends and networking opportunities to help further build brand plans & relationships 

 

Team Development 

• Provides support to new team members – ensures a full induction is provided and support during the learning process 

 

KPI’s 

Responsibility for building strength in key strategic brand relationships while delivering sales & profit growth 

• Category Sales Growth Target(s):- achieving sales growth in line if not above of budget. 
• Category Gross Margin Target(s):- achieving sales growth at maintained margin. 
• Availability & fulfilment actuals and progression by brand 
• On time launch of all NPD and range extensions  

 

Key behaviours  

• Team player – able to collaborate across functions 
• Initiative – able to think outside of the box
• Organised 
• Pro-active and positive attitude 
• Developing Self and Others 
• Driven and goal orientated  
• Can build strong relationships 
• Can work cross functionally across teams to deliver the best outcome for our brand partners and our business.  
  
  

Essential skills 

• Prioritise, structure work & effectively manage time 
• Financial and analytical ability – ability to budget and review performance 
• Excellent communicator – able to give clarity and set direction
• Commercial awareness of the beauty industry 
• Strong knowledge of your brand partners 
• Ability to form good working relationships with internal teams and external clients 
• Critical thinker and problem-solving skills 
• Project management skills
• Negotiation skills