Buying Manager

Job PurposeA high-volume retail operator is seeking a sharp, agile Buying Manager to drive a fast-turn, cash-first model. This is not a seasonal department-store buying role. It is closer to a supermarket or fast-fashion replenishment role with a trend radar: small frequent buys, daily sell-out checks, same-day reorders on winners, ruthless exits on laggards, and a constant feed of newness in the fast, high-margin categories that now drive the business.The Buying Manager owns stock turn, sell-through and margin mix. Every buying decision is measured against one question: will it sell out in a week?The model you will run•Days of cover, not seasons. Orders are sized to 7–14 days of cover at current run-rate. Deep buys and six-month ranges do not exist here.•Never out of stock on winners. Daily sell-out check on the top 30 SKUs; reorders placed the same day, doubled where the line is running.•The one-week test. New lines are bought small and proven. Sell out in 7 days → reorder and scale. Not sure → half. No → don't buy.•Range built in baby steps. The collectible wall grows by adding characters, sizes, price points and adjacent lines week by week — not by a single big range buy.•Kill discipline. Anything that fails the test twice is exited and never reordered. Markdown money is treated as found cash.•Cash awareness. You understand that every AED 100 sold splits into rebuy, old commitments and current commitments — and that stock which sits produces nothing for anyone.Key responsibilitiesDaily / weekly•Run the daily sell-out and reorder cycle on the top 30 SKUs with local vendors.•Weekly open-to-buy expressed in days of cover by category; weekly trade review (sold out / selling / not selling) with reorder and kill lists.•New line selection and allocation sign-off weekly under the one-week test.•Markdown and clearance decisions on ageing stock; RTV and credit note recovery from vendors.Range and trend•Build and continuously widen the fast categories. Ladder pricing from entry (AED 29–59) to core and hero.•Trend radar: TikTok, Asia (Japan, Korea, China), US collectible market. First-to-Gulf on releases; drop and restock calendar run with Marketing.•Monthly market analysis, regional and global, focused on what is selling fast and where.Vendors and terms•Develop and manage a local / in-country vendor base capable of restocking in days.•Negotiate and annually improve margin, payment terms (30 / 60 / 90 days), rebates and exclusives.•Maintain accuracy of master data, costs and pricing; formalize pricing and discount rules.Team and cross-functional•Performance-manage the buying team against sell-through, cover and margin, not against purchase volume.•Work daily with Operations on space and facings, with Marketing on drops, and with Finance on cash routing from weekly sales.Job QualificationsIndustry Background: FMCG category management, supermarket, convenience, fast fashion, or trend/value retail.Mindset & Approach: Operates with speed and agility—comfortable making daily buying decisions based on live sales data and prefers being wrong small over being right slow. Unsentimental about stock, quick to kill underperforming lines, and never confuses order volume with success.Trend Agility: Genuinely trend-literate; actively tracks moving trends across Asia, TikTok, and collectible culture, translating real-time demand into immediate buys.Commercial & Financial Acumen: Numerate and self-sufficient in Excel. Fully fluent in rate of sale, days of cover, stock turn, sell-through, margin mix, and cash cycle dynamics.Vendor & Stakeholder Management: Skilled negotiator who secures speed and flexible terms over simple unit pricing. Excellent English communication skills (Arabic is a plus) to collaborate directly across Finance, Operations, and Marketing.