The diverse Role of a Fashion Buyer

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12 January 2015

THE DIVERSE ROLE OF A FASHION BUYER

Role of a Fashion Buyer

In this article I’m going to talk in-depth about the role of a Fashion Buyer and some of the key areas they have to know about, which are sourcing planning and negotiating.

The Buyer is responsible for planning and sourcing a production range that will be sold by a retailer. A fashion buyers role differs between companies. For larger companies they are categorised into different product areas such as accessories and dresses. Or by fabrics such as Knitwear and Denim.

Buyers will sometimes have skills such as skilled in design and technology and able to understand and process trend research which benefit them in their career and help make informed decisions.

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Key skills Buyers need:

They need to have good fashion awareness which includes understanding customers changing fashion requirements and anticipating future looks for their customers. Making the buyer needing to be able to interpret relevant future looks into their ranges and improves perceived garment quality. Commercial Awareness is also important for a buyer to have for obvious reasons such as they can judge cost and selling prices on seeing garments and predict sales potential of a product. Actively seek and develop new suppliers and understand new target customers buying behaviour also is critical for a buyer to grasp as if they don’t understand the target customer they will buy the wrong garments for the store and could lose profit.

Sourcing is probably one of the most important parts to a buying job. So anyone who is reading this wants to become come a buyer listen up! Sourcing means:

‘The selection of a supplier of either a product or the raw material components and services used in the make up and delivery of the products’

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Suppliers have to be reliable, efficient and effective to retain the business of their retail customers, as much of retailer’s success depends on the finished products that suppliers are producing and delivering. Now if you don’t know what a supplier is, it is any individual, agent, designer, factory, or manufacturer which supply stock to a fashion business. The system of moving a product from a supplier to a customer is called a supply chain.

Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer.

Here’s an example of Apple supply chain:

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When you’re a more experienced buyer your role will involve travelling to mainly seeing clothing suppliers and negotiating he most competitive deals. You would travel to place more in Asia and the Far East as they are popular places to meet and negotiate with supplier in their factories.

Places such as China are popular locations for supplier of finished garments and India is the best place for embellished garments…. Well you could have guessed that one with how elaborate their clothing is, especially the Sarees are!

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12 January 2015

Sourcing

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Depending on whom you work for there are different roles of a Buyer. You can work for a multiple retailer, a department store, or an independent/boutique. If you work for a boutique or independent buyers would buy their stock from wholesalers or tradeshows where the garments are ready made. This is because quantities are smaller and also means that lead times are smaller due to locally sourced products as there are shorter transportation times. Places such as Harvey Nicole’s Buyers would be required to stock the store with ranges of well-known brands.

They would also create their own house-brand label, therefore sourcing a range of ready designed and manufactured produce. They do this to maximise profit ad help expose their brand. A multiple retailer such as River Island Buyer would be required to travel overseas to places such as Asia or the far East to source from cheap manufacturers. This type of Buyer would oversee the complete process of the product development including things such as the delivery arrangements. Because they are a large commercial retailer, they buy in large quantities using lower cost suppliers who manufacture. They would constantly look for new, exciting supply sources whilst using their core, proven suppliers.

Domestic vs foreign

Domestic Sourcing is when you source from your home country; here are some positives and negatives:

Positives

•Higher manufacturing and labour standards

•High intellectual property right protections

•Easier to identify reputable manufacturers

Negatives

•Much higher manufacturing costs could make a smaller

•Quicker turnaround and quicker shipping

•More accessible for face-to-face and on-site meetings and also no language barrier

•Domestic market appeal of “Made in USA” or “Made in Britain” stamp

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Foreign Sourcing is sourcing overseas; here are some positive and negatives

Positives

Negatives

•High number of manufacturers to choose from

•Low intellectual property protection

•Fraction of cost to manufacture

•Lower perceived quality and lower/different manufacturing and labour standards

•Difficulty in verifying manufacturer and visiting on-site and also a language barrier

•Longer shipping times

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•Customs/import process

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When scouring Buyers also have to think about ‘lead-times’. This is defined as the transport delivery period from the supplier’s factory gate to the designated retailer’s distribution centre or store. Lead time is made of Pre-processing Lead Time where time is needed for planning, research sampling, fabric buying, and negotiation. Processing Lead Time is the time required to manufacture an item and Postprocessing Lead Time the time needed for dispatch, transportation, customs, and delivery of goods to warehouse. Lead-times can vary a lot depending on the different companies and suppliers. They can be very variable also depending on things such as the suppliers geographic location, fabric/ trims availability, manufacturing capacity and

availability of spare production transportation availability.

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Just to make it extra clear everything that contributes to the finished garment sold to consumers needs to be sourced. So that means the fabric, trimmings, labels, tickets, hangers, bags and boxes. It is true that one supplier could be responsible for sourcing all the components but it is more appropriate sometimes to do it all separately. As a buyer you are looking for newer, cheaper and exciting sources of supply. This is so buyers can maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors; they tend to investigate newer and more innovative supply courses, while also retaining their original Most garments have a County of suppliers.

Origin printed on the label. This is

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Planning

Now enough about sourcing let’s move onto the planning!

Research and Analysis is really important to buyers as they won’t make decisions without any evidence to support them. The buyer must consider the following factors when making purchasing decisions:

the last principle stage of production is the Country listed.

This is a legal requirement and is an important identification of where products are made under the Trade Descriptions Act.

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Customer Demand (e.g. price, quality and availability).

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Market Trends – New season trends as well as sales from last season

• Store Policy – understanding your customer and brand is very important. Buyers should only buy product that is correct for the brand and customer. Not what they like themselves

• Financial Budgets – how much money they have to spend per product and for the season

The way Buyers find trend research is by attending ‘shopping trips’ in major cities to find out key trends and consumer habits. This is also done by trend prediction sites such as WGSN and attending Trade Shows and Fashion Shows. This is vitally important as this helps the Buyer and also the Merchandiser fined the best ranges to come into the store for the new season.

Merchandisers are responsible for ensuring that products appear in the right store, or on a website, at the appropriate time and in the correct quantities. This involves working closely with the buying teams to accurately forecast trends, plan stock levels and monitor performance.

Merchandisers have to keep an eye on sale pattern history to also make a decision on what will sell where and when. This is called sale forecasting, this is a projection of sales by category, style, colour and size based on historical data and statistical analysis.

Three main categories of techniques are used. First is times series, which looks at patterns in sale history to project future sales. It predicts sales for the next season based on sales of past seasons. The second is correlation or regression, which reveals how a change on one variable causes a change in another variable. For example it predicts how the rise in the cost of cotton would affect the sales of apparel using 100% cotton. The third is qualitative analysis, in which

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action by a company or its competitors or changes in the economy are assessed. Because of the complex nature and rapid changes of style trends, forecasting which forecast sales of apparel product lines is difficult. A retailer develops a merchandising plan, which forecasts sales by category within a specific time period.

Moving slightly on to something called the buying cycle, sometimes known as the marketing or sales cycle, is a patterned process consumers and business buyers go through when contemplating a purchase. Different labels and steps have been assigned to this process, though the basic elements are the same across most diagrams and outlines. Understanding the pattern buyers go through in your industry is key to effective marketing and promotions after doing research. A simple way to look at the buying cycle is to break into three stages:

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Awareness – when a customer first becomes aware of your product. Or could also refer to the point where a customer first becomes aware of a need that they want to fulfil.

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Consideration – when a customer starts evaluating solutions to their need

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Purchase

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Critical Path Method

The critical path method (CPM) of planning is key to a successful merchandising calendar. CPM planning involves determining the critical functions necessary to perform an activity or series of activates required to achieve an overall objective. The activities involved in the development, execution and delivery of an apparel product line must be analysed to determine the critical functions necessary to achieve a successful season.

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Negotiation

Negotiation is hugely important when being a buyer. They have to be good at negating to achieve the best outcome for their company but also to keep a strong relationship with suppliers. Making sure that your relationship is based on integrity, reliability and respect. Buyer will have to negotiate with suppliers the cost price, garment, details, lead times – delivery date, payment terms, discount for late deliveries, quantity, import duty and V.A.T. As they have so much to prepare before meeting up with supplies it is so important for buyers to get it right when talking to them so they can get the best deal, therefor making the buyer prepared for anything.

Buyers don’t just need to communicate with suppliers but also have to communicate and negotiate with anyone they are buying from such as manufacturers, textiles companies and wholesalers. In house they would need to liaison regularly with colleagues from all different departments in the Head Office. This is because it is a team effort when developing a fashion

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range which requires a variety of specialist input. Key departments such as design, fabric technologists, merchandisers and quality control will be in frequent contact with a buyer.

During the negotiation process there are several stages to what happens. The first one being research, research is the key to starting to prepare for the next season! Visiting trade shows and fashion shows are vital for Buyers. Trade shows occur twice a year in February and August and buyers purchase products at least 6months ahead. Depending on what the trade show specialises in, a Buyer won’t have to go for all. Say if they were just looking for women swear, they would attend Pure in London, Magic in Las Vegas and Pitti in Florence as they all specialise in women swear. Where a buyer for sportswear would just attend Bread & Butter in Berlin as they specialise in sportswear. It is very important to get information about the products and services when attending trade shows. Buyers should always plan their visit to target their niche market. Then, search information about various participating companies, their products and brand values. This also allows buyers to meet global exhibitors face-to-face and try their products. Even small businesses can find related exhibitors to source necessary products at the best prices. Numerous companies offer huge discounts to beat their competitors, which clearly benefits buyers. See ‘very fine balancing act’ how important Trade Shows can be now hey…

Fashion shows are also important to buyers "Fashion Week is a trade show. It's a glorified trade show," Lauren Indvik, the editor-in-chief of Fashionista said, "It's a chance to get in front of buyers and press." Fashion Week is a time for buyers to interpret a designer's message as a whole and take the most important parts of it to the store level, so a customer understands and desires to take home a spirit of the brand.

Once having got your research the next step is preparation. This is where the Merchandiser tends to pipe up a bit more. The merchandiser is responsible for setting the financial parameters of a garment range. This can include creating a framework for the buying budget, defining the number of product types and determining the number of lines within a range. Buyers need to make sure when they prepare for a meeting they leave enough time for the meeting and take relevant files of information and past orders. It is also essential that the Buyer identifies the max and min position that they will accept for a range of factors including product price, order size and lead-time.

The third step is Offer. Both the Buyer and Supplier make specific proposals to set the boundaries of the negotiation. It is unlikely that many offers initially made will be accepted, it’s not going to be that easy!

Fourth step is discussion. The likely framework of a final settlement will emerge in this discussion as each side makes suggestions. By the choice of words and tone signalling interest or reluctance should be noted as bargaining material for later on. There will be areas on which ‘its just a game’ ‘what everyone is one side can move more than the other and vice trying to do is try and get the best value versa. The Buyer should write down at this point for their company' ‘they let their ego which supplier can be more flexible and which take over and try their hardest to win can’t for the future.

and get emotional’

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Fifth step Counter and revised oers. This is where elements such as numbers of units, product detail, lead-times and so on are being decided in the context of an overall cost price. The buyer must be cautious at this stage and not oering concessions unless you are getting one in return.

This should always be a friendly bargaining as if the opposing side feel they are being treated unfairly won’t corporate as much.

Sixth step is Summarise. This stage is hugely vital to summarise at key stages throughout the negotiation when significant points are agreed, to avoid losing early gains and to ensure that both parties each other. Recordings of each step should have been made throughout the meeting so no minor detail would have been missed out! Keeping record also shows both parties how the deal was constructed.

Lastly the seventh step Agree and commit. Once agreed on an order they have to communicate the details to other functions. Supplier may need to book production space, order fabrics/ trimmings and source labels/tickets. The buyer then goes back to the merchandiser and informs them of the retail selling value of the order so that a track can be kept on spending. Now I know this is a lot of information to read but if you really are interested in being a Buyer or even a Merchandiser this article should help anyone out there a little insight to what the job initials.

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