By Andrea Yancy
It’s the job that the majority of freshmen say that they want to have after graduation. It’s a job that is every one thinks they want to have, but do they really? Do they really want to be a buyer for a major company, well for any company for that matter? The intense pressure, long hours, on call all the time. It’s something that school doesn’t prepare us for. What about market, where buyers spend the majority of their budget dollars for a season in a weekend. Can they keep track of what they are buying to make sure there is no overlap and no gaps? Well, I’m going to give you a glimpse into the day of the life of a buyer at market. Pay close attention though, you may miss something.
Outdoor Retailer is a trade show that focuses on the outdoor industry: skiing, snowboarding, mountain climbing, anything that involves the outdoors, Outdoor Retailer has it. Not interested in the outdoor industry? Trust me, even if you aren’t, you can’t help get excited walking into the major showroom and isles of booths that display next year’s hottest products while DJs are mixing the latest hits. The first day is always dedicated to walking the isles to get a grasp of your surroundings. You make notes of booths you will want to stop by before the end of the weekend but continue walking because there is a lot of ground to cover. Every booth transforms the product into a lifestyle, some are tree houses, others are snow forts, but every booth embodies what the brand image is. Presidents, CEO’s, owners, designers, are all disguised as they dress down to jeans and t-shirts and help buyers pick out product that will be right for their store.
Now to day 2, you are fully booked from 9am-6pm with no lunch breaks. Yikes! Talk about exhausting. It is a mad dash from appointment to appointment because if you are late, it cuts into your time to see everything you need to see and you could make an expensive mistake. Notes are extremely important ,too. A day of looking at one ski line after another, they all begin to blend together. Also, they all follow the same trends, so it is important that you do the best of this and the best of that, and the only way to make the best decision is NOTES! What kind of notes do you take? Not the kind of notes you take from a lecture that you’re half listening to, but notes that answer the questions you may have about a product. If you ask a rep a question about a product, WRITE DOWN THE ANSWER. I guarantee you after two more meetings you will not remember if that jacket has a removable powder skirt or what shade of a blue those pants are. The product you are looking at and the product that you are selecting, is the merchandise that will sit in your store and generate profits. If it does not sell, you lose money! Scary thought isn’t it? That’s why it is important to be on your game at all times. By the last meeting of your booked day, it would be easy to slack off, but this isn’t school. Your in the big leagues and your last appointment of the day is your most important one. It is a vendor that was recently sold and resold again. The first company that it was sold too, completely messed up the quality and fit of the product, but also shipped the product out extremely late. The product that didn’t have quality issues and you didn’t send back, you couldn’t sell because it was too late in the season. It is important that you first address these issues before continuing on looking at the line. You speak with the owner of the company, Jim, and he explains to you what happened and how it is being fixed. He realizes like a boyfriend who cheated on you, that they have to regain your trust, and he will do whatever has to to regain your trust back. Perfect! Let’s just hope unlike a bad boyfriend, he’s telling you the truth. By the end of the day you’ve spent 1/5 of your budget....and have a completely booked schedule the next day. So what do you think about your dream job? Or isn’t it anymore?
Notes:
Outdoor Retailer, Salt Palace. Salt Lake City, UT. January 20-23, 2011.
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