A retail buyer picks what a store chain sells in its stores and online, then buys it from vendors at a cost that leaves room for margin. At a specialty chain with a dozen or so stores, one buyer often covers several categories, shops the markets, writes the orders and decides what gets marked down.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
We're looking for a Buyer to choose and buy the products our stores and website sell in [your categories]. You'll find vendors, build each season's assortment, negotiate cost and terms, and place orders within the open-to-buy. Once product lands, you'll track sell-through and decide with the Inventory Planner what to reorder and what to mark down.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Build each season's assortment by category: which styles, colors, sizes and price points to carry, and how deep to buy.
Find and vet vendors at trade shows, markets and showrooms, and bring major new lines to the CEO for approval.
Negotiate cost, payment terms, order minimums, ship windows, freight, and markdown or return allowances.
Place purchase orders within the open-to-buy and track them through to delivery.
Set retail prices and initial markup, and set up new items in the system with correct product details.
Review sell-through every week and decide what to reorder, cancel or mark down.
Work with marketing, e-commerce and visual merchandising on launches, promotions and product information.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review sales and sell-through by item, by store and online.
Talk with vendors about late shipments, cancellations, reorders and new product.
Approve samples, product photos and website descriptions.
Update the order book and confirm ship dates and receipts with the warehouse.
Shop competitors and our own stores to see what's working on the floor.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Sell-through by category: [your target].
Gross margin by category: [your target].
Initial markup: [your target].
Markdowns as a share of sales: [your target].
Vendor on-time delivery: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[3+] years of buying or assistant buying experience in retail.
Strong retail math: markup, margin, sell-through, open-to-buy and weeks of supply.
Has negotiated cost and terms with vendors.
Advanced spreadsheet skills and experience with a merchandise or inventory system.
Able to travel to trade shows and vendor meetings.
6. Preferred Experience
Bachelor's degree in merchandising, business or a related field.
Existing vendor relationships in [your product category].
Has bought for both stores and an online store.
Experience developing private label or exclusive products.
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a computer for long periods, and walk trade show floors for full days.
Lift sample boxes up to [25] pounds.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Based at the central office, with regular store visits.
Travel to trade shows and markets [several times a year], sometimes out of state.
Longer hours before market weeks and during holiday reorders.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new buyer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Buyers everywhere pick products and push vendors on cost. Here, one person does work a big retailer splits across a team, and every order has to work for a dozen stores and a website at once.
One order feeds every store and the website
A department store buyer has planners and allocators behind them. Here the buyer works with one inventory planner and has to think about store counts while writing the order. Buy too shallow and the website sells out of the best colors in the first weeks. Buy too deep and every small stockroom fills up with sizes nobody asked for.
Small orders make terms worth fighting for
A chain this size can struggle to meet a vendor's order minimums, most of all for private label. Good buyers make up for it on terms: longer payment dating, free freight over a set order size, markdown money when a line misses, and the right to cancel goods that ship late. Those terms protect cash as much as a lower cost does.
Product pages carry legal claims
The buyer approves product photos and website copy, so the details have to be right. For clothing, towels, bedding and most other home textiles, the FTC says online and catalog ads must state whether the item was made in the USA, imported, or both. That line has to match the label. If the copy mentions any fiber, the ad must list the label's fiber content too, without the percentages. Source: FTC: Threading your way through the labeling requirements under the Textile and Wool Acts.
Importing your own goods adds paperwork
Many specialty chains add their own brand or exclusive goods to stand apart. When you import those goods yourself, the paperwork a vendor used to handle is yours. For children's products, the importer must issue a Children's Product Certificate based on tests by a CPSC-accepted lab. Since July 8, 2026, importers of most CPSC-regulated products must also file their certificates electronically with Customs. Ask for test reports before the goods ship. Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Children's Product Certificate.
Market weeks set the calendar
Buyers shop trade shows, markets and showrooms months before each season, then live with those orders long after. At this size the CEO often still signs off on big new lines, so the buyer comes back from market with samples, costs and a sales plan before committing the money.
How much retail buyers make
The closest BLS group for retail buyers is buyers and purchasing agents. Buyers and purchasing agents who work for retailers earned a median of $57,840 a year ($27.81 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $77,710 median for buyers and purchasing agents in all industries. About 38,460 of the 491,430 buyers and purchasing agents in that survey work for retail stores.
Most buyers earn a salary. Some chains pay a yearly bonus tied to gross margin or sell-through in the buyer's own categories, so the buyer shares the cost of a bad order and the reward of a good one.
Retail stores
$57,840$57,840 median Middle half $45,070–$75,840 10th–90th $37,200–$101,560
All industries
$77,710$77,710 median Middle half $60,800–$100,820 10th–90th $48,380–$128,870
$0k$25k$50k$75k$100k$125k$150k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Retail stores
$37,200
$45,070
$57,840
$75,840
$101,560
All industries
$48,380
$60,800
$77,710
$100,820
$128,870
These figures cover all retail. Pay differs by store type, so check what local stores like yours pay. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Fast, correct retail math: markup, margin, sell-through and weeks of supply
Taste for what your customer buys, checked against sales data instead of personal style
Firm, friendly bargaining with vendors who also sell to much larger stores
Spreadsheet skills strong enough to build an order plan and defend it to the CEO
Follow-through on dozens of open orders, ship windows and cancel dates at once
Teach these on the job
Your categories, price points and core customer
Your merchandise system and how new items get set up
How your open-to-buy works and when the CEO approves a buy
How each store sells, from the mall location to the small-town one
Your vendor list, past terms and main contacts
Buyers work in the company's merchandise or inventory system (for example NetSuite, Retail Pro, Lightspeed or Shopify), spreadsheets for order plans, and vendor B2B portals for reorders. Lead the posting with your product categories. Someone who has bought your kind of goods will pick up a new system quickly.
Retail buyer interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Fill in the bracketed targets from last year's results, category by category. A basics category and a trend category should never share one goal.
Sell-through by category
Units sold divided by units received, by category, for each month or season. Pull it from your merchandise system every week and compare stores with online.
Gross margin by category
What's left of sales after the cost of goods, markdowns and vendor allowances, as a share of sales. Have finance run it the same way every month so categories compare fairly.
Initial markup
The planned markup when goods are first priced, from the purchase order cost and the ticket price. Check it on every new order before it is placed, not after the goods land.
Markdowns as a share of sales
Markdown dollars in a category divided by that category's sales over the same period. Split promotional markdowns from permanent clearance so you can see which ones the buyer controls.
Vendor on-time delivery
Purchase orders received inside the ship window, out of all orders due. Use the warehouse's receipt dates and bring the list of late vendors to each market planning meeting.
Career path
Store managerLearns what sells on a real floor, by size, color and season.
Assistant buyerWrites orders, chases late shipments and sets up new items.
BuyerOwns a set of categories from market week to final markdown.
Senior buyer or merchandise managerLeads the other buyers and the whole assortment as the company adds stores.
Not always. The BLS career guide says most entry-level buyer jobs ask for a bachelor's degree, some take a high school diploma, and certification is optional. In specialty retail, many buyers come up from store management or assistant buyer jobs. A record of buying your kind of product, with sell-through to show for it, counts for more than the diploma.
How much does a retail buyer make?
Buyers and purchasing agents who work for retailers earned a median of $57,840 a year ($27.81 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $45,070 and $75,840 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
Can we call our private label products Made in USA?
Only if they meet the FTC's standard. A plain Made in USA claim means the product is all or virtually all made here: final assembly or processing in the U.S., all significant processing in the U.S., and nearly all parts made and sourced here. Since 2021 the FTC can seek civil penalties for a false Made in USA label, including labels shown in catalogs and online.
What does a buyer do when a product we sell turns out to be unsafe?
Act fast. Retailers, like makers and importers, must report to the Consumer Product Safety Commission within 24 hours of learning that a product has a defect that could create a substantial risk of injury, or creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. No one has to be hurt yet. Vendors often call the buyer before anyone else, so write down who pulls the stock from stores and the website and who calls CPSC.
Should buyers accept gifts or trips from vendors?
Set a written policy before you hire. Vendors court buyers with dinners, samples and trips, and a buyer who feels they owe a vendor will keep a weak line too long. A common policy caps gift value, bans personal trips, and sends free samples to the stores or the sample room instead of home.
What should we ask a buyer in an interview?
Ask them to walk through one season they bought: the plan, what sold, what they marked down, and what they would change. Strong buyers know their numbers without notes and can name the vendor terms they won. Then give them a short open-to-buy problem and see how they work the math.
