Sourcing specialist fashion, luxury & lifestyle
Job profile
The sourcing specialist or sourcing manager is in charge of maximising the suppliers' performance, in terms of quality, costs, delivery schedule or innovation. It includes identifying cost saving opportunities, negotiating, closing contracts or creating a competitive environment.
Globe-trotter / Negotiator
Within their company, the fashion, luxury, and lifestyle buyer typically manages a portfolio of several brands. Their goal: to manage the sourcing of products and raw materials for their brands from suppliers and manufacturers in their designated geographic area (Asia, South America, Eastern Europe, etc.). Negotiating products, prices, and deadlines is their daily routine, and their objective is to achieve the best possible margins on resale, particularly by leveraging volumes.
They define in advance the quantities, budgets, and margins for each brand and spend most of their time traveling to meet their various business partners. Supplier sourcing also includes finding new supply sources that offer better quality products at the lowest possible prices. Additionally, they attend trade shows and create tenders to achieve this goal.
Instinct and Intuition
The fashion, luxury, and lifestyle buyer must also be able to anticipate new trends to negotiate the textiles, materials, and key products of tomorrow at very advantageous prices. Their intuition, combined with their excellent knowledge of fashion/lifestyle and in-depth understanding of consumer trends, is then a valuable asset.
In the luxury world, the fashion, luxury, and lifestyle buyer must have an in-depth knowledge of their brand's products to find the most suitable materials that meet all the technical criteria defined in advance. At the end of the season, when the stocks are almost all sold out, the fashion, luxury, and lifestyle buyer can consider that they have completed their mission.
The management aspect (annual import report, coordination with storage warehouses and stores, stock management, restocking, etc.) is also part of the fashion, luxury, and lifestyle buyer’s responsibilities, whose multiple attributes make them a strategic player.
