Being a "buyer" and grad schemes...let's start with Fenwicks

Besides interior decoration, another area of the field I quite fancy establishing a career in is buying. I'm an organised person with a love working with people, chatting, and completely thrive of a busy environment. As much as I love physically making, sometimes I do feel that I acquire a stronger eye than I do hand- I love to seek out gorgeous stuff and focus on high quality but I can't always produce to the standard I wish I could. I also come from a family of business, so this runs in my blood! I quite fancy getting into a buying office as work experience this year, so here I'm going to voice my findings of what it takes to be a buyer and where I could possibly gain some experience...


I've been reading Fashion & Textiles The Essential Careers Guide ( By Carol Brown, Laurence King Publishing, 2010), they highlight the typical skills of a buyer:

• Knowledge of market trends in order to develop an exciting range appropriate to the target market
• Financial acumen with good negotiation skills
• Commercially minded
• Confident, with excellent communication skills
• Ability to work under pressure

 To help narrow my search, I will focus on a few main medium end retailers within the field and base me research around them. They include FENWICKS, JOHN LEWIS, LAURA ASHLEY. I am also going to look at a higher end brands including LIBERTY, THE CONRAN SHOP AND ANTHROPOLOGIE.

So what does a buyer at Fenwicks do?

"A Buyer sources new products and develops ranges. At Fenwick, a Buyer is a manager, an organiser and a creative thinker focused on selecting the right stock, which is crucial to the business. Using your knowledge and plenty of instinct, you will review and select potential merchandise, fit it into agreed purchase budgets and present enticing, well-planned ranges to the customer. You will, naturally, be working closely with suppliers to set up the best deals and create promotional offers."

"A career as a Buyer offers you plenty of variety, accountability and a fast-moving environment. Decisions you make one day can impact the stores and customers the next. Knowing your customer is key with the constant challenge of considering what is feasible, commercial and profitable."
http://www.fenwick.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/downloads/graduate-brochure.pdf

Even just reading this fuels me with excitement- I love the sound of being able to exercise my creative eye yet have to work within restraints at the same time (budgets and time scales). I have also always worked really hard- in everything I do, so the fact that this career recognises that and offers the option to progress sounds ideal!
This gorgeous pdf leaflet explains everything I need to know about their grad scheme and how I could become a buyer there. The grad scheme definitely sounds like something worth looking into, I had always believed I would land a career that would teach me the ins and outs on the job in order to help me get to the top.

http://www.fenwick.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/Fenwick_DigitalEdition_1.pdf

So this all sounds pretty good, and they are local too which is a bonus. It's not that I aren't will to travel as I know I could gain invaluable experience in London, but for the long term I plan to stay in the North East- it's just home!

Ill finish this post here otherwise it's gonna get lengthy! I'll look at John Lewis next and see how they compare. 

xoxo F