Free People Associate Buyer - Accessories

Free People; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Paid Time Off

Employee Discounts

Retirement Savings

Job summary

Free People seeks a Buyer for Accessories to curate a compelling, timely assortment across retail, direct and wholesale channels that drives sales and profit.

You will lead a buying team, partner with design and production to exceed customer expectations, and craft assortments aligned with store and customer needs. This role demands trend-driven strategy and strong negotiation with suppliers.

Qualifications

• Leadership and team management experience in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong presentation, negotiation, and communication abilities.
• Solid financial and analytical skills with business acumen.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills and collaboration across teams.
• Keen awareness of emerging fashion trends and market dynamics.
• History of smart risk taking to drive opportunities.
• Ability to prioritize tasks balancing immediate needs with long-term goals.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team to exceed sales and profit plans across retail, direct, and wholesale channels.
• Collaborate with design, production, merchandising, planning, allocation and sales.
• Work with planning to optimize buys and maintain in-stock positions for key items.
• Translate selling takeaways into actionable plans for divisional directors.
• Understand retail/wholesale calendars to maximize efficiency for all channels.
• Coach and develop the buying team.
• Analyze assortment mix for retail, direct, and wholesale businesses.
• Drive opportunities to enhance brand quality and customer satisfaction.

Skills

Leadership

Fast-paced

Presentation skills

Financial analysis

Interpersonal skills

Trend awareness

Risk taking

Prioritization

Job description

Role Summary

Free People is seeking a Buyer who would be responsible for creating an exciting and timely product assortment for our accessories business across the retail, direct and wholesale divisons that meet or exceed the sales volume and profit for the accessories department. The Buyer of Accessories would drive trend, while capitalizing on product expansion through new styles, embellishments and brands.

Role Responsibilities

• Managing a team to exceed sales and profit plan for retail, direct and wholesale business
• Demonstrating and building collaborative relationships between design, production, merchandising, planning, allocation and sales
• Partnering with the planning team to distort buys and ensure in-stock positioning for key items and classifications
• Filtering high level, topline selling takeaways to divisional and director with action plan
• Understanding the retail and wholesale calendar and ability to maximize efficiency of calendar for retail, direct and wholesale business
• Managing, coaching, and developing buying team
• Disciplining self and others to understand customer, competition, and ability to think creatively to seek business opportunities and drive the business
• Managing the financials of business: OTB, IMU, MD, Closeouts, Inventory and receipt plan
• Partnering with design and production to exceed customers’ expectations for brand quality
• Partnering with the allocation/planning and sales team to thoroughly understand our store and wholesale customers (department, specialty, international and ecommerce) and develop assortments to best fit their needs
• Analyzing assortment mix (private label, wholesale, and market) for retail, director and wholesale business

Role Qualifications

• Strong management and leadership skills
• Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment
• Strong presentation, communication, and negotiation skills
• Strong financial and analytical skills
• Incredible interpersonal skills
• Keen awareness of emerging trends
• A demonstrated history of smart risk taking
• Able to prioritize tasks and balance the immediate and long term needs of the business

The Perks

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

EEO Statement

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.