Buyer, Watches & Luxury Goods

Heinemann Americas•Coral Gables, FL

10d

About The Position

Heinemann Americas is seeking a Watches/Luxury Merchant to curate product assortments and drive strategic growth across fine watches, jewelry, and pre-owned luxury leather goods in its cruise ship retail boutiques. The role uses cruise luxury retail intelligence, guest analytics, demographic trends, and customer and supplier data to create an exceptional onboard shopping experience and profitable, sustainable category growth. The buyer develops vendor relationships and serves as a category expert across planning, marketing, sales, and onboard operations. The position owns category line planning, product and cluster-based assortment architecture, competitive pricing, product lifecycle management, and supplier forecasting. It includes expertise in the secondary luxury market, such as authentication, provenance verification, valuation, and sourcing verified pre-owned inventory. The buyer negotiates commercial terms and brand commitments, collaborates with global counterparts, represents the business at luxury trade events, and partners on onboard promotions, visual merchandising, and custom retail programs. The role also analyzes sales and inventory performance, resolves supplier and delivery issues, executes purchasing budgets and revenue targets, models margins, prepares financial projections for new brands and programs, and works with Planning to address aging or underperforming inventory. The work may take place in office, remote, port, and shipboard environments, with travel to vessels, embarkation ports, and other business locations as business needs require.

Requirements

3–5 years of experience as a buyer.
Expertise in fine watches and pre-owned luxury goods, including secondary-market pricing trends, vintage and rare-piece appraisal, and certified pre-owned sourcing networks.
Expertise in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Sourcing and negotiation skills.
Clear communication and presentation skills.
Exceptional attention to detail.

Nice To Haves

Travel retail experience.
SAP and business intelligence knowledge.

Responsibilities

Own the category line plan, product selection, and cluster-based assortment architecture, balancing heritage lines, new products, and pre-owned luxury inventory.
Analyze global domestic, international, and travel retail pricing to support competitive positioning, margin targets, and channel pricing.
Manage product launches, novelty releases, and exit strategies with marketing, visual merchandising, and activity management partners.
Work with Demand Planning and Retail Planning to manage supplier forecasts, product availability, and fill rates.
Apply secondary-market knowledge to authentication, provenance verification, valuation and pricing, and sourcing verified pre-owned inventory.
Build and maintain vendor relationships across fine, moderate, and fashion watches, fine jewelry, and trunk show brands.
Negotiate commercial terms, promotional margin support, channel pricing, co-op investments, payment terms, and Incoterms.
Secure brand commitments for new cruise ship retail projects, shop-in-shop concepts, and distribution requests.
Coordinate with global counterparts and supply partners on category alignment and operational policies.
Attend luxury trade shows, watch fairs, and market weeks to identify trends, evaluate potential brand partners, and secure product allocations.
Partner with Operations, Marketing, and Activity Management on onboard promotions and events, including VIP trunk shows and high-watchmaking seminars.
Collaborate on space allocation, planograms, and visual standards to improve space productivity and ensure brand compliance.
Source vendors for cruise retail programs, pop-up events, and port-of-call activations tailored to itineraries.
Analyze weekly and monthly sales against brand targets, optimize plans, maintain stock balance, and execute timely markdowns.
Resolve supplier issues involving damages, over-shipments, shortages, price discrepancies, and lead-time changes, and communicate updates to relevant parties.
Share category insights and performance trends with Planning, Marketing, Sales, and Onboard Operations.
Partner with Planning and Category Management to execute purchasing budgets and revenue targets, contributing market and product insights.
Model gross margins and negotiate channel pricing to improve category performance.
Forecast sales and prepare financial business cases for new brand introductions and custom retail programs for leadership approval.
Work with Planning to address underperforming or aging inventory and secure vendor support for markdowns, liquidation, returns to vendor, or destruction.