Employment Spot

Job Description

The Home and Garden team is looking for a talented, smart, experienced and entrepreneurial Senior Buyer to help lead and expand the business.  The successful candidate will be the business owner for a retail category with responsibility for all aspects of demand, for driving a best-in-class customer experience, and for ensuring category leadership in online shopping. This entails driving unit, revenue, and margin growth through effective management and implementation of projects, maximizing selection, and enhancing our merchandising, customer, and site experience.

The Senior Buyer is a passionate customer and category advocate within Amazon, with proven analytical capability and project management skills, extreme attention to detail, and the ability to effectively prioritize and multi-task. He or she must be able to develop clear business rationales for new features and services and interact with technology development teams to bring customers ease-of-use and innovation in shopping. The Buyer must be an effective leader and communicator in working with some of Amazon.com’s most important partners and vendors, as well as with internal groups. The ideal candidate will be a self-starter with a passion for retail who is process driven with strong analytical skills.

The successful Senior Buyer must be able to:

• Act as the business owner for a US Retail category, possessing a complete understanding (inclusive of the strategic context) of internal and external variables that impact your business (this entails owning forecasting, monitoring, understanding and reporting on the category, along with responsibility for driving projects and promotions to achieve business objectives)
• Have a thorough understanding of the industry, seasonality and global business trends/events, and continually monitor competitor/industry developments
• Maximize Amazon’s segment share and profitability
• Have a complete understanding of customer needs, both existing and potential, and use that knowledge to deliver site features that provide Amazon customers with an unparalleled shopping experience
• Manage third party relationships - manage supplier/partner contracts, manage day-to-day relationships, and negotiate and secure marketing funds
• Create business plans for new opportunities and develop and execute project plans for the launch of new features, incorporating merchandising and pricing strategies
• Coordinate cross-functional teams, and communicate with internal and external parties, while meeting tight deadlines
• Conduct financial analysis of promotions and opportunities to set and meet revenue and profit targets

 Experience/Skills

• A strong background (5+ years) in buying, product management, financial analysis and/or marketing is required, preferably within a consumer goods / retail company
• 2+ years E-commerce experience
• Ability to think both strategically and tactically
• Proven analytical skills and highly numerate (includes ability to use tools such as Excel and Access)
• Good attention to detail
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects - work prioritization, planning and task delegation
• Proven track record of taking ownership and driving results
• Broad commercial awareness developed in a fast-moving environment
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills
• Commercial negotiating experience
• Strong writing and speaking skills
• BA/BS required and MBA preferred

Job Requirements