Company Overview

Originating as a small surf shop in 1968, South Moon Under has evolved into a national fashion retailer. We are building a vibrant, diverse team of creative, friendly, skilled, and passionate people who want to work hard and win even harder. We value our employees, and we enable them to deliver their best work. If you want to work for a company where we drive for success every day, without compromising human connection, you’ve found your Team!

At South Moon Under, our mission is summed up in four words – love. create. drive. imagine. We love this team - We create and curate beautiful things - We drive to be our best and we inspire others to tap into their power - We imagine and execute on our visions every day. Our Team is filled with smart, skilled, dynamic, creative, and passionate employees who drive to be better every day. Our customers are our inspiration. We personally curate our products to make our customers look and feel good. When our customers walk into our stores, we aim to connect and spread the love.

General Summary

The Associate Buyer is responsible for assisting Buyers and Merchandising leadership building an exciting and balanced assortment that will meet or exceed sales and gross margin plans for their specified departments. The Associate Buyer will partner with planning to develop seasonal and monthly assortment strategies that will drive growth in sales and increase profitability. They are expected to shop the market and develop private label merchandise that aligns with customer demographic and business trends with support from Buyers and merchandising department leadership. In addition, this person will have high financial acumen and be fashion savvy to use both data analytics and fashion intuition to drive results. This individual is responsible for the successful development, execution, and communication of assortment strategies for their assigned department(s), with support from merchandising leadership. This individual may manage direct reports and/ or interns.

Product Duties:

Create and implement merchandise strategies that support financial plans.
Shop monthly market and trade shows to select, edit, and build a balanced assortment that meets customers’ demands.
Build private label styles that support assigned categories’ line architecture and IMU objectives through collaboration with key vendors and merchandising leadership
Drive all aspects of the product life cycle; identifying style, negotiating cost, assigning retail, managing style changes and delivery with vendors.
Manage SKU & style intensive businesses and manage location intensive assortments.

Financial Duties:

Partner with planning on the development of annual, seasonal, monthly, and weekly financial plans for assigned categories, with limited support from merchandising leadership.
Achieve IMU, GM%, WOS, and sales goals for assigned categories with limited support from merchandising leadership.
With support from planning, select buy quantities and door strategies based upon historical data, current trend, and anticipated future events.
Analyze weekly and monthly sales, inventory, and receipt plans to drive sales and minimize markdowns.
Communicate a point-of-view on product supported by facts and data.
Provide expert analysis on trends and recommendations to drive immediate purchases, cancellations, future purchases, and assortment strategies.
Intimately familiar all details of their assigned categories’ open-to-buys; closely collaborates with planning weekly to ensure accuracy of incoming receipts, product IMU, and coming markdowns.

Leadership Duties:

Develop and maintain collaborative relationships with internal and external sources.
Work with merchandising leadership and cross functional team members to ensure that the original vision /intent for product is executed across marketing and visual merchandising initiatives.
Collaborate with store teams to refine knowledge of customer needs and to ensure stores are informed on product attributes, highlights, and outfitting strategies to build outfits for SMU customers.
Maintain an on-going development and mentorship of any direct reports, if assigned.

Job Required Knowledge, Skills and Education:

Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion Merchandising or a related field.
1 year as an Associate Buyer, with consideration for seasoned Assistant-level experience.
Minimum 2 years merchandising, planning, buying, or equivalent experience in the retail industry preferred.
Ability to understand customer demographic and to identify appropriate product that will appeal to the customer.
Strong understanding of retail math and measures used in financial reporting.
Analytic Skills: Ability to think objectively and interpret meaningful themes from quantitative and qualitative data.
Financial and Business Acumen: Ability to evaluate financial and business indicators and translate data into actionable information to drive results with limited guidance from leadership.
Problem Solving & Decision Quality: Able to use rigorous logic and methods to solve problems with effective solutions, with limited assistance from leadership.
Relationship Management: Able to build constructive and effective relationships with a broad and diverse group of business partners, both internally & externally.
Presentation Skills: Effective in a variety of presentation settings including one-on-one, small and large groups, and with peers and Executives
Systems and Tools Acumen: Capable in Microsoft Excel, Proficiency in Microsoft Access, PowerPoint and Word. Must also have aptitude to learn other technical applications quickly.
Coachability: Ability to embrace constructive feedback with an open mind. Willingness and eagerness to learn, question norms, and continuously improve.
Risk Management: Anticipate risks and identifies contingency plans and processes to prevent disruptions when risks occur.

Disclaimer: The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified. South Moon Under maintains the right to modify all or part of any job description at its discretion to meet and or exceed the needs of the business.