Head of Buying - Womenswear, Brands & Concessions
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Coventry Store Support Centre - Ansty Park and Home, Coventry, CV7 9RD
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Non Food
Closing date: 05 February 2025
Requisition ID: 287695
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. From fragrance to car care, clothing and pots and pans, our General Merchandise team delivers all the non-food items for Sainsbury’s, Habitat and Argos customers. This multi-brand environment means you get to work across most areas. You can also be a pioneer, because the team believes in being brave, iterating and learning as they go. They also develop deep connections to other departments, which opens up a lot of different career opportunities for you. What’s certain is that you’ll spend time on the shop floor to get closer to customers, and bring a broad perspective and the full support of your manager with you wherever you decide to develop next.
The Head of Buying- Womenswear, Brands & Concessions offers a unique opportunity to lead a significantly large and diverse commercial team in developing and delivering innovative category strategies that drive business growth and profitability. With a focus on creating compelling product ranges, fostering strategic supplier relationships, and influencing market-leading initiatives, this role provides a platform for impactful leadership, collaborative decision-making, and continuous professional development within a dynamic and customer-focused retail environment. Embrace the challenge of driving commercial success and shaping the future of retail alongside a talented team of professionals at Sainsbury's.
What you'll do
As the Head of Buying- Womenswear, Brands & Concessions within the Commercial division, your primary responsibility will be to lead a team of buyers and collaborate with the Head of Merchandising, Design, and Global teams to develop and implement a long-term category strategy aimed at driving business growth and profitability. You will be accountable for creating and executing commercial and profitable range plans aligned with strategic direction and budgets, ensuring a customer-centric approach. Additionally, you will build effective strategic relationships with senior stakeholders within Global brands and Own Brand manufacturers to optimise product cost, manage supplier performance, and drive supplier income to enhance profitability. Your role will involve leading negotiations, overseeing product launches, formulating pricing and promotional strategies, managing financial budgets, optimising stock and supply, monitoring market trends, and ensuring legal compliance and ethical training within the team. Ultimately, you will be instrumental in shaping the product vision, driving commercial success, and fostering a high-performing and collaborative work environment that delivers compelling customer offerings across multiple channels.
Who you are
As the Head of Buying, you are a seasoned leader with a proven track record of driving commercial success and delivering strategic growth initiatives. With your in-depth understanding of the retail market, customer behaviour, and category technical expertise, you possess the skills to lead a high-performing team of buyers to achieve financial targets, develop innovative product ranges, and strengthen supplier relationships. Your ability to engage internal and external stakeholders, make complex negotiations, and analyse data to inform commercial decisions sets you apart as a visionary leader who drives change, fosters collaboration, and inspires excellence across functions to deliver a compelling customer offer.
Essential Criteria
Womenswear Expertise: Possesses extensive experience in womenswear and leading the strategic vision for the category. Demonstrated expertise in developing own brand product ranges.
Third-Party Brand Experience (Womenswear, Menswear, and Kidswear): Proven experience in collaborating with third-party brands and suppliers, defining a clear category vision, and adapting strategies to meet evolving business requirements.
Branded Supplier Relationship Management: Demonstrates a strong ability to establish and maintain expert supplier relationships, developing long-term strategic partnerships, and identifying market opportunities to expand the product offering for our customers.
Leadership Capability: Exhibits proven leadership capability with a history of fostering a high-performing team culture across multi-disciplinary teams. Shows an ability to inspire, motivate, and develop team members to reach their fullest potential.
Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop category strategies and the capability to transform these strategies into actionable plans.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 65% of salary, depending on how we perform (in cash and shares).
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).