Merchandising and Buying Placement Review

In merchandising, I worked with buyers and other colleagues across the business to send out the best mix of products to create a treasure hunt experience in-stores through analysing and bringing together information from various reports and using shipping tools in order to drive sales. This includes weekly meetings to review trade and communicating messages to buying, followed by actions taken the buying role. In the last few months you then shadow buyers, expand my knowledge on buying processes and shadowing vendor meetings where I will see how deals are negotiated and finalised.

Some of the skills I believe I was able to use and develop too include research skills where I was researching trends in buying for strategies going forward, as well as analytical skills where I was analysing reports on a weekly basis. One of the biggest things I have learnt about and have developed most are my communication skills for sure. I think this is where I felt there was most room for improvement at the start of my placement, and having the right support and guidance helped me to improve on this each month. Putting the right meetings in place and receiving feedback from my manager and peers was vital.

I was given a large amount of responsibility from quite early on in the placement. I was in charge of what happens to a large amount of units each day and consequently my actions had a big impact on the business. It was clear to see the impact of my actions at times, where coming up with a strategy for a vendor and executing this will result in an increase in sales. Not only this but due to having previous knowledge on a certain topic, I was assigned with the task to give presentations to help my colleagues better understand the topic to help them make decisions on their strategy for the upcoming season. This was a task which I felt was extremely important as I had significant impact on what strategy was taken when buyers made decisions.

From the beginning of the placement, we received a large amount of training during the first few months and then going forward there were sessions to support our learning and development along the way. This was in the form of meetings with the senior leadership team, as well as 1:1s with my manager every other week throughout my placement period. Once in buying I had check ins with my manager, having pre and post meetings after each vendor visit to reflect on what I learned from each vendor visit. We also had the chance to hear from various people around the business on their learnings which helped going into buying especially.

The culture was extremely welcoming, with everyone extremely willing to help even if you'd never spoken to them before. Everyone at the company is extremely kind and I do think its a great atmosphere to work in and a great environment to be a part of. Even being virtual for the whole of my merchandising period, we still had fun sessions where we played games on each Friday and this made working virtually a lot more enjoyable.

The day job aspect of the role is something I didn't enjoy as much with a number of admin tasks, however saying that there were a number of aspects that were enjoyable. For example, coming up with strategies and putting them in place, then seeing the impact on business made the following week was extremely satisfying. The team was very welcoming themselves and were willing to help when requested most of the time. The culture itself is very welcoming, however there I would say that I sensed a lack of diversity within my Sector. I would say I was very happy with the experience and learnt a lot over my time there, especially considering it was mostly virtual. I do believe I would go back as it is a great company to work for.

Yes

In preparation for the interview process, use all available resources to collate information about both the role and company such as the TJX website. Make notes and ensure you understand how the company operates, as well as understand what the role being applied to is about. I would advise visiting a store and looking around online and shop around for a couple of items you might actually want to buy. I was inspired to join by my love of TK Maxx as a business and how they operated differently and I only learnt about this and how they work from being a customer myself.