Senior Buyer
M.H Alshaya
Total years of experience :20 years, 5 months
As a senior buyer for Alshaya Group I am responsible of the buying activities for a diverse brand
portfolio ranging from Women, to Men, Kids, and Footwear within department stores across the
MENA region. Duties includes:
▪ Screening New Brands propositions
▪ Liaising with existing suppliers and building business relationship
▪ Preparing and Negotiating agreements with potential suppliers
▪ Providing product briefs and working with suppliers on creating and developing private
labels and exclusive products/collections
▪ Liaising with internal functions to ensure new brands/ product compliance to individual
markets requirements
▪ Overseeing the process of setting up new supplier with different functions such as finance,
legal, IT and Logistics
▪ Creating product ranges for 30+ brands in line with budget and space plans and securing
merchandise flow throughout the season to deliver financial goals
▪ Planning deliveries to ensure that the stores are properly stocked as per commercial and
financial plans
▪ Analyzing past sales patterns to anticipate trends in consumer buying pattern
▪ Negotiate with suppliers returns and discounts to maximize profitability
▪ Providing relevant product information across functions such as marketing, operations and
visual merchanting
▪ Providing continuous updates to different internal stakeholders’ newness and brand
launches
▪ Monitoring market changes, competitor prices and products
During my time with Alshaya I had led the divisional digital project to launch brands on 3rd party
platforms.
During my work as a buyer for the Premium Fashion Department in Alyasra I was responsible of
creating, developing, implementing, and trading brand buying plan for 13 brands including:
Kenzo, Jimmy Choo, Maxmara, Weekend by Maxmara, Marina Rinaldi, Persona, Max&Co, Marella,
Twinset, Weill, Gerard Darel, and Petit Bateau.
My Duties includes
▪ Developing and builds pre-season style plans and recommends investment quantities in line
with commercial plan and financial goals
▪ Building appropriate merchandise assortments for assigned brands that achieves planned
KPIs, including profit, sell-through, margins, inventory turn, cover, rate of sale, etc.
▪ Creating commercially successful ranges and maximize sales
▪ Setting the OTB budgets with the finance and merchant teams
▪ Managing Open-to-Buy (OTB) to ensure sales, margins, turns and profitability are within
plan
▪ Leveraging problem solving and buying skills to develop merchandise strategies that deliver
profitable sales for the division while upholding brand and corporate identity
▪ Working cross functionally with merchandising, marketing, buying and brand teams
▪ Providing store training on seasonal merchandise and prepare presentation packs to
support sales staff in launches, pre-selling, trunk shows, campaigns and special orders as
applicable
▪ Building and maintaining productive relationships with brands and suppliers
▪ Reviewing supply strategy and maintain strong communication with host brands
▪ Analyzing vendor performance and negotiating all aspects of profitability including RTVs
(Return to Vendor) and off-price buys to maintain profitability and margin expectations.
▪ Monitoring stock levels and maintain in line with targets
▪ Monitoring aged stock without compromising brand image in coordination with Brand and
Buying & Merchandising Team
▪ Collaborating with Merchandise team on product flow, inventory management, allocation
and distribution at department, business and store level
▪ Understanding sales trend and their implication for inventory investment range-building
and stock allocation
▪ Running weekly sales analysis on product performance to identify best/worst performers
and recommend effective courses of action to maximize sales without compromising
margins
▪ Communicating and reporting all relevant trading information to Head of Buying and
Merchandise
▪ Creating retrospective Reports and SWOT analysis on previous seasons to forecast future
buys
During my work as a regional buyer for DKNY I was responsible for:
▪ Defining with the buying manager and the business director the objectives of the buying by
POS (budgeting)
▪ Monitoring the OTB budgets
▪ Planning and selecting the range, the quality, the type of merchandise by POS
▪ Keeping track of fashion trends of the local and international markets
▪ Studying and recommending rates, margins, selling prices and mark downs for collections
▪ Monitoring prices and provide competitive comparison and advising pricing strategies
▪ Anticipating client preferences
▪ Negotiating with external suppliers
▪ Advising and influence host brand on special requested product
▪ Evaluating and supervising sales of products in POS
▪ Liaising with merchandisers to ensures good stock management, plan stock levels, and
transfers of products in POS and different markets to maximize sales
▪ Working very closely with the merchandisers to ensure the right products are selected to
bring into the store.
▪ Explaining, training and presenting at the beginning of each season, new collections and
new trends to VM, sales and brand teams
▪ Working closely with VM and sales teams
▪ Coordinating with marketing team regarding promotional materials and brand image
▪ Monitoring payments status with the finance team
▪ Coordinating deliveries with supply chain
▪ Analyzing sales reports to better target future purchases and to push current sales
▪ Regularly reviewing performance indicators, such as sales and discount levels
▪ Working and coordinating with merchandisers and stores to manage the defected and
nonconforming products.
▪ Collecting the feedback from sales team on collections
was to plan and drive the effective movements,
efficiency and profitability of wholesales products to the customers, ensure teams are positively
led and empowered, quality operations are maintained, and sales targets are reached or
exceeded.
Main duties included:
▪ Planning and buying the range of products for distribution in the assigned market
▪ Planning the sales of the products to retailers
▪ Managing and driving the performance of brands
▪ Building and maintaining good relations, regular contacts and visits for all costumers and
business-related parties
▪ Contributing to the development of a long-term strategy and plan for the company within
the core values and objectives
▪ Negotiating details of contracts and payments and prepare sales contracts and order forms.
▪ Recommending new customers business opportunities expansion
▪ Visiting customers’ shops across different locations for Brand Performance Evaluation
▪ Preparing a sales plan of return/old products and manage their sales processes
▪ Driving sales of current and new accounts including the company’s owned shops to achieve
sales and business goals for their assigned accounts and targets
▪ Tracking sales performance with weekly and monthly reports
▪ Working closely with marketing team to ensure effective implementation of wholesales
programs and promotions
▪ Reviewing competitors marketing campaign and share the same with marketing team
▪ Providing feedback about customers’ satisfaction related to brand and stocks
▪ Reviewing customer complaints and provide support appropriately in addition to
communicate as necessary to division manager
▪ Ensuring proper after sales services
▪ Identifying manpower requirements according to per business plan and needs
▪ Ensuring team receives necessary training and development and per job level to reflect on
their capabilities and customer service
▪ Assessing teams’ performance and identify their training needs
Brand Manager and Communication Specialist ZABBAT Group - Lebanon: Exclusive
agent distributor & retailer for European fashion houses i.e. Gerard Darel, Manoukian, Weill, Devernois,
Luisa Cerano, Georges Rech...
During my work as a brand manager I was in direct exposure to clients and suppliers,
coordinating their activities and communicating their needs, main duties included:
▪ Working to improve relationship with existing clients and suppliers and establishing a
close professional relationship with key customers and partners
▪ Visit suppliers abroad and attend fashion fair and collections presentations
▪ Place and/or assist clients in placing their orders for the new collection
▪ Monitor brands and advises clients and suppliers
▪ Support the development of brand strategies and marketing plans across the organization
▪ Follow-up on advertising budgets with the Advertising Officer, accounting department and
suppliers
▪ Contribute in pricing, marketing, business development strategies
▪ Deliver regular feedback to management by submitting activity, territory analysis and
results reports
▪ Conduct market researches and studies to monitor competition and spot new business
opportunities
▪ Manage and coordinate internal marketing research and follow-up on brand performance
with the retail department
▪ Produce regular reports to Wholesale Director on brand performance and agreements
with clients and suppliers
▪ Coordinate with the merchandising manager to keep POS abreast with brand image and
provide him guidelines when applicable
▪ Follow-up with the logistics and sales administration manager on delivery of clients
▪ Follow-up with the accounting department on the payment of clients as per the bill book
delivered by the logistics
As a communication specialist I lead the development of the marketing and communications
strategies through
▪ Managing customer loyalty projects
▪ Leading, supervising, coordinating and implementing websites development
▪ Ensuring the testing of the site during the website implementation stage
▪ Acting as a liaison between suppliers (technology partners) and company
▪ Following up on quality of content, updates, information layout, social media and
general functionality
▪ Coordinating and managing the marketing operations in the points of sale
Completed 12 months program in Fashion “Modélisme”&” Stylisme”, where I learned fashion design, technical drawing and pattern making. Courses also included history of fashion design, fashion trends, merchandising… Experimental Sciences
During my studies at the university and part of my graduation requirements I did several projects covering arenas in marketing: i.e. Marketing researches and studied for different products and services, case studies covering the different stages from data collection, fact finding and analysis to the end recommendations and problem solving.
: Economics International marketing Marketing research Problem solving Costing Graduation projects During my studies at the university and part of my graduation requirements I did several projects covering arenas in marketing: i.e. Marketing researches and studied for different products and services, case studies covering the different stages from data collection, fact finding and analysis to the end recommendations and problem solving.
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