Buyer

BuyWander•Seattle, WA

44d•$70,000 - $100,000•Onsite

About The Position

At BuyWander, the Buyer owns our vendor relationships and the terms we buy on. This is not conventional procurement. You are not specifying products or placing replenishment orders. You are evaluating truckloads of mixed, returned inventory from a manifest, often with a short window to decide, and negotiating what we pay for goods we have not seen. Get the terms right and a load clears at a healthy margin. Get them wrong and we spend three weeks processing inventory that never had a chance. Your job is to secure the best possible landed cost and manifest quality from the sources we keep, develop new supply relationships that give us first look at good loads, and hold vendors accountable when what arrives does not match what was sold. You will work inside the buying envelope set by Merchandise Planning and have real latitude to move quickly within it. For context on the stakes: a point and a half of cost as a percentage of retail is worth roughly a million dollars a year at our current volume. That is the game. BuyWander's Values Happy: We bring positive energy to our work and support each other. Humble: We stay grounded, open to learning, and focused on the team over ego. High Performing: We set a high bar and hold ourselves accountable to results. (H)loyal: We show up for each other and the company, with loyalty that goes beyond the ordinary.

Requirements

5 or more years in buying, procurement, sourcing, or vendor management with direct ownership of negotiated outcomes.
A demonstrated track record of improving cost or terms, with specific numbers behind it.
Sound commercial judgment under time pressure and incomplete information, including comfort deciding on a load from a manifest rather than an inspection.
Relationship-building skills that open doors and earn priority access, paired with the willingness to hold a vendor accountable or walk away.
Strong analytical fluency including the ability to work from margin and recovery data, not instinct alone, and comfort in spreadsheets and an internally built platform (Chuck).
A bachelor's degree in business, supply chain, finance, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience in liquidation, off-price, resale, salvage, or reverse logistics.
An existing network among retailers, liquidators, or 3PLs.

Responsibilities

Negotiate landed cost, cost as a percentage of retail, freight allowances, payment terms, and return rights with inventory sources.
Evaluate offered loads on manifest quality, product mix, category composition, and expected recovery, and walk away from loads that do not clear our economics.
Execute purchases within the open-to-buy budget and target mix set by Merchandise Planning, moving fast on good inventory when the window is short.
Renegotiate terms with existing sources as their performance data warrants, using our scorecards as leverage.
Source, vet, and cultivate relationships with retailers, distributors, 3PLs, and liquidators to expand and diversify our supply base.
Serve as the primary face of BuyWander to our vendor network, building the kind of relationships that earn us first look and priority access on quality loads.
Reduce concentration risk by developing new qualified sources ahead of need.
Partner with Merchandise Planning on the monthly source scorecard and own the vendor conversations that follow, whether that means renegotiating, improving, or exiting.
Resolve supplier issues including manifest discrepancies, quality shortfalls, and items that do not match what was sold, and pursue vendor claims where warranted.
Maintain vendor agreements and ensure terms stay aligned with our margin targets as we scale.
Work daily with Merchandise Planning, translating buy plans and market capacity into executed purchases.
Coordinate with Transportation on freight terms, allowances, and inbound scheduling.
Partner with the Pricing Analyst on manifest data quality and load-level performance.
Negotiate cost, terms, and freight allowances with inventory sources and hold vendors accountable when loads do not deliver what was sold.
Evaluate truckload manifests under time pressure and make buy recommendations grounded in margin and recovery data.
Own the vendor conversations that follow the monthly source scorecard, including renegotiations and exits.
Build and maintain relationships across retailers, liquidators, distributors, and 3PLs that earn BuyWander first look on quality loads.
Develop new qualified sources to reduce dependence on any single supplier.
Execute all purchases within the open-to-buy budget set by Merchandise Planning, with exceptions deliberate and documented.