Manager, Retail Buying

Avanti Software Inc.; Toronto; On-site; CAD 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a dynamic team at a leading university bookstore where you will lead the retail buying group in strategic sourcing and merchandising. This role involves collaborating with various departments to create an engaging omnichannel retail experience for students and faculty. With a focus on innovation and market trends, you will curate product collections that align with brand identity while managing vendor relations and optimizing inventory. This is a unique opportunity to impact the retail landscape within an esteemed educational institution, ensuring a best-in-class experience for the university community.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of retail buying experience with a focus on omnichannel strategy.
• Experience in managing teams and fostering a collaborative environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead the buying team and manage product curation for the bookstore.
• Oversee category management and vendor relations to maximize sales.

Skills

Retail Buying Experience

People Management

Financial Acumen

Analytic Skills

Communication Skills

Visual Merchandising

Trend Awareness

Risk Management

Education

Post-secondary Education

Tools

NetSuite

Job description

Responsible for leading the retail buying group in planning, strategic sourcing, merchandising, and managing inventories for the U of T Bookstore. This role ensures that product curation aligns with brand identity, seasonal direction, student and faculty needs, while innovating alongside evolving retail trends and maximizing sales and margin growth. You’ll collaborate with the leadership team, finance, retail operations, marketing, and E-commerce to develop a cohesive omnichannel retail experience for our customers and stakeholders. You’ll build strong relationships with vendors and contacts across the University of Toronto, and at the University of Toronto Press, to ensure best-in-class retail experience.

Key Responsibilities include:

Team Leadership
• Provide direction and feedback for the buying team and encourage innovation.
• Foster a creative, data-driven, and collaborative environment.
• Align stakeholders on seasonal product direction, inventory optimization, and timelines to create cohesion across channels.
• Set and communicate individual performance expectations for buying team.

Category Management
• Oversee and report on the development and performance of multiple categories.
• Meet budget expectations and financial targets.
• Curate and define multi-category collections to create compelling omnichannel assortments.
• Analyze and report on product lifecycle and category performance, determine assortment revisions and exit strategies including markdowns and returns.
• Oversee go-to-market execution, ensuring products arrive on the floor and online in accordance with operational timing, meeting merchandising and brand expectations.
• Create and maintain product information in NetSuite, including item listings, purchase orders, inventory accuracy, and reporting for assigned categories.

Strategic Sourcing and Vendor Relations
• Build and maintain strong relationships with vendors, suppliers, and key stakeholders including, but not limited to, The University of Toronto.
• Negotiate favorable terms, pricing, and delivery timelines to support budget, margin growth, store operations, inventory management, and marketing initiatives.
• Attend trade shows and industry events to source new products and stay current with retail trends.

Cross Functional Collaboration
• Collaborate with marketing to plan promotional activities, ensure adequate signage, and provide product support for events.
• Work closely with retail operations, course materials, and e-commerce managers.
• Liaise with University of Toronto Trademark and Licensing, and Brand Hub who manage the University of Toronto trademarks and brand.
• Create and distribute communications for merchandising, product knowledge, special launches/promotions, and other pertinent business information
• Connect with Campus Stores Canada counterparts to stay up to date on industry and market trends.

Other responsibilities
• Participate in events, special projects, and other duties as assigned.

Education, Qualifications, and Experience:

• Post-secondary graduate, or equivalent combination of education and experience
• +4 years of retail buying experience
• +2 years of people management experience
• Experience with NetSuite and/or product design preferred

Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes:

• Financial acumen and analytic skills
• Excellent communication and organization abilities
• Visual merchandising sense and a commitment to omnichannel strategy
• Commercial knowledge in product selection, trend awareness, risk management
• Commitment to continuous learning, a growth mindset
• Values matter to you. You bring your whole self to work and you live our values of accountability, innovation, respect, and customer focus

About our Team:

The UofT Bookstore provides many important goods and services to the University of Toronto community. We operate four stores across the three U of T campuses (St. George, Mississauga, Scarborough, and Faculty of Law) and a large online shop that ships Canada-wide and internationally. We offer a wide selection of course materials including new, used, digital, and custom course pack options, all competitively priced with a student budget in mind. We also carry U of T–branded clothing and merchandise, gifts, trade books, technology products, school supplies, and more.

About University of Toronto Press:

University of Toronto Press (UTP) is one of the largest university presses in North America, publishing landmark scholarship since 1901. Each year UTP releases over 200 new scholarly, course, and general interest books in both print and eBook format and over 45 journals. In addition, UTP manages the distribution for over 200 publishers and imprints in Canada, the US and around the world, with warehouses in Toronto ON and Buffalo NY. UTP also runs all of the University of Toronto Bookstores across the three main campuses, serving over 95,000 students and 15,000 faculty. For more information, please visit utorontopress.com.

As the leading university press in Canada and one of the largest in North America, we acknowledge our role and responsibility in effecting positive change. With this, we seek to continuously improve the diversity and representation of our publications and the clients we represent, as well as within the makeup of our organization. With strong commitment from leadership, we are collectively bringing forward change across the organization, both within our company culture and in our publishing, distribution, and retail endeavours. UTP operates with mutual trust, respect, and integrity as we strive to identify and remove barriers. We are committed to making UTP a great place to work by addressing and challenging systemic inequities.

Interested in applying?

We truly thank all applicants for their interest in joining the Press, only those candidates considered for an initial interview will be contacted.

The University of Toronto Press encourages applications from all qualified candidates. If you need accommodation at any stage of the application process or want more information on our accommodation policies, please contact the People Team at 416.978.2239 ext. 2255.

This is a current vacancy within our organization.