Assistant Buyer

East Fork Pottery•Asheville, NC

16h•$65,000 - $65,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Assistant Buyer supports Product by managing samples, maintaining accurate product data, supporting analysis, and acting as a key liaison between internal teams and vendors. This role is detail-driven, highly organized, and hands-on, with meaningful exposure to the full product lifecycle—from concept through delivery. This is an ideal role for someone with strong taste and operational rigor.

Requirements

1–3 years of experience in buying, merchandising, product development, or a related retail role
Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously
High attention to detail and comfort working with product data and systems
Clear, professional written and verbal communication skills
Basic inventory and sales analysis capabilities (Excel/Sheets proficiency required)
Strong follow-through and comfort with daily vendor communication
Collaborates across cultural differences
Ability to respect and communicate across lines of cultural differences
Ability to address conflict by assuming positive intent and seeking to understand
Ability to embrace a mistake w/ out fault
A commitment to center the active process of self awareness

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end sample management, including intake, tracking, evaluation, photography coordination, documentation, and physical organization
Maintain and update product information across systems, including item setup, costing, vendor details, timelines, and attributes, ensuring accuracy and consistency
Serve as a primary point of contact for vendor communications, including sample status, costing updates, timelines, and follow-ups
Support product development and sourcing initiatives by tracking milestones, updating cross-functional tools, and coordinating information flow
Monitor new purchase orders to ensure they track on schedule and to planned quantities
Oversee reorder execution by maintaining clean inventory data, reviewing performance, and flagging quantity or timing adjustments as needed
Partner with e-commerce and merchandising teams to support strategic site placement
Prepare and manage product information for launch, ensuring accurate, complete pass-off to copy, marketing and ecomm teams, including attributes, pricing, timelines, and supporting documentation.
Support product education by building selling guides and coordinating store product trainings to ensure teams are confident at launch.
Maintain shared product trackers across merchandising, creative, sourcing, and operations, and support meeting preparation, notes, and follow-ups as needed