The North Face: Buyer, Hardgoods (Americas)
About the role
What will you do?
A day in the life of a Hardgoods Buyer at The North Face looks a little like this.
You will be responsible for building and executing strategic seasonal buys that deliver on brand priorities, DTC channel initiatives, and financial targets. This role sits at the center of the business - translating brand strategy, consumer insights, and financial targets into actionable buying decisions that drive profitable growth. The Buyer operates with a business owner mindset, balancing product storytelling with rigorous financial discipline. This role plays a critical part in driving sales and profitability through demand forecasting, buy generation and margin management, while ensuring the right balance of full price inventory in the right channels.
The Buyer partners closely with Merchandising, Planning, and Supply Chain to deliver best-in-class assortments that meet both consumer demand and financial commitments, while continuously adapting to business performance in-season. This role requires strong analytical skills, trend awareness, strategic capabilities to drive sales and profitability and strong collaboration with cross-functional teams.
Let's break down that day-in-the-life a bit more.
- Drive buy generation based on target sales and inventory levels (sell-through goals), ensuring alignment with the merchandise financial plan across sales, discount, margin and sell-through
- Analyze market trends, customer preferences and historical sales data to forecast demand at style-color, while optimizing inventory flow. Improve forecast accuracy through end-to-end forecast management by channel.
- Collaborate closely with Merchandising to ensure buy delivers the Channel product priorities and Merchant assortment strategy.
- Track product performance and adjust buying strategies to maximize sales and minimize markdowns.
- Line Plan analysis and support, providing analytical view and strategic targets to merchandising by evaluating the line to ensure it meets productivity goals, sales objectives and brand/regional growth strategies.
- Lead Buy Review meetings to share each season's key product strategies, revenue and investments with store, visual, and marketing partners.
What do you need to succeed?
We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundation skills you'll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in Business, Marketing, or Merchandising is great to have, we are most interested in your 3-5 years of experience and professional achievements.
The foundation skills you will need in this position are:
- Buying experience in
footwear, apparel and/or fashion retail
- Strong analytical, communication and problem solving skill
- High level of proficiency in Excel
- Deep understanding of retail math, consumer behavior, and analyzing data trends
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
- Passion for fashion and trend forecasting
Now WE have a question for YOU.
Are you in?
Hiring Range
Incentive Potential
Benefits at VF Corporation
Looking to Join VF?
Not included in the source posting: about the role, qualifications.
Skills
Who can apply
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