How do you become an assistant buyer for a dept. store??

Answer 1

You should take whatever business courses, marketing especially, you can get. Then target your store carefully. If you are in a big city, where there's lots to choose from, start with the classiest one; the one with the highest prices. They will probably also have the highest salaries, and be the most demanding of your skills.

A buyer specifically needs to have good taste, and judgment as to what the customers want. The more the emphasis is quality rather than price, the more you will learn your suppliers' strengths and weaknesses. Focus on price alone, or even compromising on quality in order to get low prices, is not the way you want to learn.

So even if it's hard, don't start with a discounter. Work for the classy people, and you will become classy yourself. An assistant buyer working under an experienced buyer in a good, high-class store would be an adventure in itself, but the real thrill is preparing yourself to be a buyer.

Of course, you must dress with real class yourself, in order to display your good taste at the job interviews. Concentrate on dignity and conservative cut, but with very good fabrics and fitting you perfectly.

Good luck! It's a fascinating field if you get good at it. An old friend of mine was buyer for a large department store in Philadelphia for years, and she loved her job. Got to travel a good bit, inspecting the factories where things were made in order to be confident of the quality. She said it's such a trip to look at something you can't afford personally, and say "I'll need a gross of those." (That's a dozen dozens, or 144.)

And of course, you can be the one in your family to say "I can get it for you wholesale."

Answer 2

Business relations