Fashion A day in the life of a BUYER

Their role is to plan and select garment and clothing ranges to sell in retail stores and/or online. Fashion buyers have to do extensive research to recognise what customer demand currently isconsidering modern day trends and price points. Analysis of a customer is a huge role for a fashion buyer as they must understand their clientele to predict future trends as well as best sellers.

The best way to get into becoming a fashion buyer is achieving a degree in fashion design, business or retail. Additionally having previous experience in accounting and mathematics would make a budding fashion buying look more employable. However people can still get an entry level fashion buyer career from college and sixth form qualifications if they are in the general areas of fashion, textiles, business or accountancy.

Fashion buyers need to have the ability to work in a team as their job role requires them to liaise with clothing suppliers all over the world. Within these teams they decide which clothing pieces would be suitable for their companies target market. FB’s have a role to source fabric and materials for their brand, choosing which prints and designs will best suit the upcoming season as well as insuring the fabric picked maximises the company’s profit. Designers work very closely with fashion buyers as the buyer in question may not find a material or design appropriate enough for their company’s (whether that be because its not in budget or just that they’re not happy with the overall design outcome) therefore they may have to create and weave an entirely new fabric with new prints dyes and colour combinations. “Oftentimes they will work with fabric agents that can offer advice and better trading terms with the mills” (Yu A 18/1/2019)

Tara Lawton (who is a Buyer at Pretty Little Thing) worked her way up without any previous fashion qualification into becoming a Buyer at PLT. She was originally hired as a BA (buyers admin assistant) then moved to an assistant buyer then junior buyer and then to her big role now – Buyer for PLT. She didn’t go to university or college and instead puts her passionate personality behind why she got to where she is now. Tara’s climb up the career ladder shows there is no direct educational route to achieving such a big position in the fashion industry and instead it comes down to a persons character, fresh ideas they come with and their drive for success.

Fashion buyers must have key employability skills like: organisation, negotiation, decision making, analytics and interpersonal. Organisation is key for a fashion buyer as they are in charge of the majority of the monetary side of a retail business so should make sure they handle all the information and tasks they receive in an organised conventional manner. Negotiation and decision making come hand in hand for fashion buyers as they need to have the ability to make well informed decisions outweighing all the positives and negatives of working with a specific supplier or picking a certain product/fabric for their collection. Having great interpersonal skills is required for majority of jobs, however it is vital for fashion buyers as they need to be able to successfully communicate and build professional strong relationships with suppliers and coworkers to gain the absolute most out of their business deals. For example, if a fashion buyer was unable to have stable relationships with their industry partners it could create huge devastation for the company as neither side of the party would be working together - unable to understand each others wants and needs.