the podcast
Thrive in Fashion Buying & Merchandising
Over sixty episodes on how the job actually works – open-to-buy, margins, suppliers, range reviews and the career development that nobody explains. Fifteen minutes, every week.
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The favourite episodes listeners come back to and play again.
Demand forecasting is the discipline of turning what you already know into a buying plan with commercial logic behind it.
Proper retail sales analysis is what separates a buying plan from a guess. It is not about which products sold
Commercial awareness in fashion buying means connecting every product decision to a customer and a business outcome, and being able
Fashion range planning decides what you will buy, in what quantity, at what price and in what proportion, before a
Open to Buy is the amount you have available to spend on additional stock during a defined trading period. It
Understanding markup vs margin is the difference between a range that looks profitable on a costing sheet and one that
Career progression
Moving from assistant to buyer, buyer to senior, and what employers are looking for at each step.
A buyer performance review assesses considerably more than just the figures on the page, and much of what is being
AI in fashion buying is genuinely useful in five specific places and genuinely risky in three. I am not a
A strong fashion buyer CV demonstrates what you achieved rather than what you were responsible for. Mine did not, for
Fashion school gives you a creative foundation and very little of what a buying office actually measures you on. That
The fashion buyer career path typically progresses from administrator or buying assistant level through junior buyer, buyer, senior buyer levels
A fashion buyer is responsible for turning trends, data, and customer insight into commercially successful product ranges. They research the
Commercial awareness and strategic thinking
OTB, margin, sell-through and the numbers behind every buying decision.
The most consistent fashion buying mistake I see is a buyer relying on a good eye and assuming the commercial
Hitting sales targets is why you keep the role you are in. It is rarely why you get the next
Gross margin comes up in every range review, every supplier negotiation and every conversation with your merchandiser. Most buyers enter
Sell-through rate is the metric buyers quote most often and interpret least carefully. It measures the relationship between what you
Demand forecasting is the discipline of turning what you already know into a buying plan with commercial logic behind it.
Proper retail sales analysis is what separates a buying plan from a guess. It is not about which products sold
Soft skills and people management
Trade meetings, supplier conversations, influence and leading a team.
Stakeholder communication is one of the most important skills a buyer can develop and one of the least formally taught.
Effective supplier negotiation in fashion buying has very little to do with tactics and a great deal to do with
What Happens When Fashion Buyers Go Too Far: How Supplier Relationships Are Destroyed. Anonymous social media posts from fashion suppliers
When it comes to talking about careers in fashion buying, the conversation is usually centred around about how do you
“How you do anything, is how you do everything” is an old saying that has been well quoted. This idea
Product knowledge
Fabric, fit, product development and the critical path from concept to shop floor.
A fashion tech pack is the specification document a factory builds from, and the difference between a clean production run
Private label product development takes a product from an idea to a delivered order, working directly with a factory rather
Where to Start to Learn about Fabrics There is so much to learn about fabrics it is hard to know
One of the most exciting stages of the product development process is when your first samples are completed especially if
Process skills
Range planning, range reviews, seasonal planning and the working methods of a buying office.
Building a fashion range runs from an initial concept to a delivered order, and the stages exist to organise the
The fashion critical path is the part of the buying process that holds everything else together. It is the glue
As we wrap up the AW24 season, it’s the perfect time to start planning for AW25. Even if you’re still
In the dynamic world of fashion retail, striking the perfect balance between seasonal trends and timeless classics is an art
In order to effectively plan a clothing collection, all fashion buyers need to prepare a range plan. The range plan
