Assistant Buyer- Grocery

About Grocery Outlet:

• Our Mission: Touching lives for the better
• Our Vision: Touching lives by being the first choice for bargain-minded consumers in the U.S.
• Our Values & Behaviors: Achievement, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Family, Fun, Integrity & Service

About the Team:

Our Purchasing team's mission is to provide bargain-minded customers with the deepest discounts on quality and branded products. In many ways our team is the heart of the organization- building and maintaining vendor relationships and providing solutions for our supplier partners and independent operators. Our buyers are empowered with speed, flexibility, and freedom while their passion and creativity embody the art of closeout buying. Successful members of our team are motivated to exceed annual comp sales, thrive in a collaborative environment, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and be motivated by relationship building.

The role:

You will be a part of the MTO (Made-to-Order) team; the MTO Team is responsible for the category management decisions, assortment planning, seasonal planning, RFP's and the buying and replenishment of everyday items. The focus of this role is to assist the buyers with their daily responsibilities. This role ensures accuracy in the ordering process while facilitating communications between vendors, corresponding buyers, stores, and other departments within the company. This role reports to a Sr. Buyer on the team.


About the Role:

• Support Buyers on all day-to-day functions of the department.
• Maintain departmental files on line; Purchase Orders, Quote Sheets, Import files, Vendor lists, Performance files correspondence, forms and other documents.
• Assist the Buyers in writing purchase orders. Monitors existing purchase order status; production, shipping and receiving of shipments. Ensures quality control of all orders.
• Monitors on-order and manages weekly receipt flow into DC to insure timely arrival of orders.
• Responsible for direct store shipments - Flex Order Guide.
• Responsible for initiating yellows, red alerts, price changes and corrective billings.
• Track and maintain monthly ad plan.
• Understand and execute appropriate distribution of products and maintain proper turn goal.
• Create weekly Hot Buy sheets for Friday purchasing meeting.
• Update WOW alert photos and verify product descriptions on a weekly basis.
• Update internal communication system.
• Ensure that communication (written/verbal) is complete and thorough with vendor and internal partners.
• Assist in marketing event planning. Assist with creation of packaging and branding.
• Assist the Buyer in analyzing opportunistic opportunities and communicate to the Buyer recommendations.
• Maintains positive working relationships and communication with vendors, internal departments, stores and warehouse.
• Identify and shop competition (including price checks); understand the target customer.
• Identify trends within the department to help reach and exceed sales and margin plan.
• Review sales by store by SKU; identifying hot and slow sellers.
• Maintain vendor relationships; work with vendors and Buyer to help negotiate better terms and/or costs for merchandise being purchased.
• Establishes and maintains a reputation of credibility and responsiveness; promptly returns vendor and store phone calls, ensures timely follow-up on issues within 24 hours.
• Write articles addressed to store managers and operators communicating organic trends, merchandising recommendations and general knowledge of the organic category.

About The Pay:

• Base Salary Range: $30 Hourly
• 401(k) Profit Sharing
• Medical, Dental, Vision & More!
• Final compensation will be determined based upon experience and skills and may vary based on location.

About you:

• A Degree or 1 to 2 years retail/sales or related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, outgoing, willing to help others and positive attitude.
• Proficient in the use of Excel, Microsoft Word and Outlook.
• You are keen to details and highly organized!
• Resourceful and able to research problems and recommend solutions.
• You are highly analytical and numerical savvy.
• Strong written & verbal communication skills.
• Frozen industry awareness or interest with the ability to understand and research current trends, within competition and market.
• Ability to prioritize, multitask and manage multiple projects with broad workload to meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven team player, self-motivated, independent-thinker.
• Ability to reprioritize projects frequently.
• Able to effectively and respectfully communicate with all levels of staff and management.

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Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.