Buyer – Jewelry and Fashion Textiles
Engaging. Dynamic. Fun.
As one of the world’s renowned art museums, the MFA boasts a collection that spans nearly all cultures and time periods—ranging from the art of ancient Egypt to French Impressionism to Contemporary. There’s art and so much more to interest people from all walks of life. The Museum is a lively social destination that offers concerts, films, and lectures while also serving as an important community and educational resource for schools and families.
Our mission is to preserve and share our treasures with Boston and beyond while providing an engaging and memorable experience for all our visitors. This would not be possible without our talented staff, volunteers, donors, members, and community partners.
Our culture is built on scholarship, collaboration, trust, and mutual respect. We embrace change and the opportunity it brings and are committed to develop, reward, and retain our valuable staff.
Join us for what promises to be an enriching, vibrant, and ever-changing experience. And, yes, a fun place to work!
The Buyer will determine the overall strategic direction of the product/merchandise mix for the Retail/Exhibition Division for jewelry and fashion textiles. Specific responsibilities include establishing merchandise assortments for stores and exhibitions, achieving sales and gross margin goals and ensuring appropriate inventory levels are maintained. The Buyer will determine store unique pricing strategies to ensure GM goals, preparing reports on sales, and ensuring the correct assortments are maintained for specific needs of each store. The Buyer should maintain good business relations with customers as well as the MFA vendor base.
Essential Functions:
• Review, update and procure store assortments based on LY needs and current trends to ensure a proper balance of fashion (contemporary) and MFA basics.
• Attend trade shows, meet with vendors and vendor representatives to review and evaluate product lines.
• Evaluate the NRQ replenishment models within each department on a quarterly basis to ensure that appropriate styles and inventory levels are in place to maximize sales.
• Complete financial plans for each season with realistic and achievable sales, GM and turn goals.
• Work within Open-to-Buy to finalize buy quantities by style and maintain a flow of goods. Participate in monthly meetings to review open to buy reports to ensure receipt flow allows us to meet plan by department.
• Work with Director and Designer to concept, suggest and execute MFA appropriate product based on the MFA’s collection and trends happening within the market and the store’s business.
• Inject market product where needed to meet receipt plan and meet individual store assortment needs.
• Participate in seasonal sales re-cap by department of assortment “hits and misses”. Utilize this analysis to build sales.
• Review sales on a daily and weekly level versus LY and PL to better understand customer needs and initiate markdowns on a timely basis.
• Determine product focus by department by month to ensure “newness” on the retail floors and the website.
• Adhere to Exhibition assortment conception and confirmation schedule to deliver product timely for the Exhibition shop set-up.
• Recommend product categories to highlight in all advertising channels.
• Seasonal market review to determine trends, conduct competitive shopping for content and pricing.
• Seasonal store assortment presentations to store management team. Supply hard copy assortment plans for store’s reference.
• Monthly meetings with Director to report by store on sales results, GM, receipt flow, NRQ, Exhibition schedule, trends, markdowns, visual, housekeeping and other related issues.
• Bachelor’s degree and 3 to 5 years of related experience/training, or equivalent combination of training and experience
• Prior buying experience a must
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Detailed oriented, visually intuitive and able to work independently
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks simultaneously
• Strong mathematical skills with the ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, interest, commissions, proportions and percentages
• Specific retail calculations such as gross margin, inventory turns, weeks of supply and sell through are necessary
• Excellent computer skills
• Valid Driver’s License
For consideration, please submit your cover letter and résumé to: resumes@mfa.org. You may also submit your materials via postal mail to: Human Resources Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an Equal Opportunity Employer and seeks diversity in its workforce.
June 16, 2016
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