Here are the keywords and skills that appear most frequently on recent Retail Buyer job postings. In other words, these are the most sought after skills by recruiters and hiring managers. Go to Sample Templates ↓ below to see how to include them on your resume.
Remember that every job is different. Instead of including all keywords on your resume, identify those that are most relevant to the job you're applying to. Use the free Targeted Resume tool to help with this.
Does your resume contain all the right skills? Paste in your resume in the AI Resume Scan ↓ section below and get an instant score.
Paste your resume below and our AI will identify which keywords are missing from your resume from the list above (and what you need to include). Including the right keywords will help you get past Applicant Tracking Systems (i.e. resume screeners) which may scan your resume for keywords to see if you're a match for the job.
Negotiation is an important skill in Retail Buyer jobs, so show hiring managers examples of times you negotiated things like contracts, deals, terms and agreements. Use action verbs like 'Negotiated' or 'Influenced' to further highlight your negotiation skills.
The following word cloud highlights the most popular keywords that appear on Retail Buyer job descriptions. The bigger the word, the more frequently it shows up on employer's job postings. If you have experience with these keywords, include them on your resume.
Here are examples of proven resumes in related jobs and industries, approved by experienced hiring managers. Use them as inspiration when you're writing your own resume. You can even download and edit the resume template in Google Docs.
Retail salespeople need a big dose of people skills alongside an awareness of sales and marketing strategies, business trends, and basic software and point of sale (POS) hardware. Retail salespeople need to demonstrate their ability to make a sale and may even work on commission, so make sure to emphasize the times you exceeded sales goals or provided excellent customer service.
When it comes to sales, numbers are key. In other words, quantify your achievements! “Exceeded sales goals” sounds okay, but “exceeded commission goals each week by at least 15%” makes the scope of your accomplishment much clearer. If you have numbers for the amount of revenue you generated, sales you processed, or promotions you upsold — use them.
A longer list of skills isn’t always more impressive. Keep your skills section easy for hiring managers to digest by listing only the most relevant hard skills you possess. For retail sales, this means things like POS and operating systems and data entry software. Soft skills, like communication and customer service, should go in your bullet points where you can quantify them.
A retail sales associate, typically a sales associate working specifically in a brick-and-mortar store, must have excellent interpersonal skills and the emotional intelligence to interact with a variety of different customers daily. When crafting your retail sales associate resume, make sure to emphasize the relevant skills and experience you have developed in your past retail roles.
Retail sales involves extensive face-to-face interaction with customers on a daily basis, and hiring managers are looking for candidates who can effectively handle the unique challenges that come up in this environment. Make sure to include as much relevant experience you have for the role -- even outside of just retail. For example, if you worked as a receptionist, you were often working face-to-face with an office’s clients. If you think outside the box like this, you can probably come up with more relevant experiences than you realize!
Focus on including retail-oriented skills in your skills section. Showing hiring managers that you have applicable experience in working a cash register, improving operations, or troubleshooting credit card issues can be the difference between landing a job or getting passed over. In addition, make sure you read through the job posting to see what skills they list, and emphasize the skills they’ve highlighted throughout your resume.
A retail buyer is a professional agent that procures goods for the retail industry. They must plan the type of products they’ll buy based on consumers’ demands and trends. Retail buyers must determine the quantity of those products and find suppliers with the best deals. It is also a retail buyer’s responsibility to evaluate existing merchandise and determine whether they are still competitive in the market. As a retail buyer, you must have excellent communication skills and a combination of education and relevant industry experience. You must be familiar with the retail sector.
As a retail buyer, you must have an eye for marketing trends, but this goes beyond intuition. Data-backed decision-making will be your best friend when deciding which products to buy or which vendor to choose. Therefore, you must highlight your research skills, such as data collecting, competitor analysis, price comparison, etc.
A senior buyer is an experienced agent, usually with more than five years of work history in the market. They are familiar with complex and highly technical procurement procedures, including managing regulatory compliance. A senior buyer’s goal is to reduce costs while still maintaining a feasible production cycle. Senior buyers also create performance reports, monitor inventory, and manage restocking when needed.
Contract agreements are the guarantee between the vendor and your employer. As a senior buyer, you will often have to evaluate these contracts to ensure your employer’s needs are met and it all falls under legal regulations. A good contract will avoid risks in the supply chain, determine fair costs, and help both parties maintain a successful relationship over time.
A fashion buyer forecasts potential trends in the industry and purchases products that consumers might be interested in. They assess consumers’ purchasing patterns, demands, and current prices in the market. Then they will find suppliers that offer the best prices and products and establish an alliance with them.
Your potential employer wants a buyer agent that is completely familiarized with the apparel industry. You must understand how the fashion industry works in order to identify trends in consumers. Knowing about textiles and color theory and being up-to-date with the current industry trends is definitely a plus.
Merchandising is a technique in which you promote items to resell in wholesales or retail companies. The way you present those products is going to affect sales, so being familiar with merchandising techniques is important in this occupation. Some of those methods can be having well-restocked shelves, including promotional items, and enhancing a product’s features with lighting or color.
Assistant buyers’ role is to negotiate prices, specifications, and delivery schedules with suppliers. They must also prepare reports and statistical presentations for their superiors. This is a highly dynamic occupation in which your main purpose is to increment your employer’s consumer audience.
There are five stages of strategic sourcing: evaluation, determining an agreement model, identifying the ideal supplier, contract implementation, and monitoring. If you are familiar with this process, you can secure better deals with suppliers. Don’t forget to mention your familiarity with technical sourcing on your resume.
As an assistant buyer, you will constantly work under pressure, so your future employer needs to know if you’re capable of handling that work environment. You must meet deadlines and make sure suppliers also do.
On top Retail Buyer resumes, skills like Retail Buying, Merchandising, Visual Merchandising, Retail, Inventory Management, Fashion, Apparel and Trend Analysis appear most often.
Depending on the exact role you're applying to, skills like Merchandise Planning, Marketing Strategy, Forecasting, Styling and Fashion Buying can also be effective keywords to include on your resume.
While the keywords above are a good indication of what skills you need on your resume, you should try to find additional keywords that are specific to the job. To do this, use the free Targeted Resume tool. It analyzes the job you are applying to and finds the most important keywords you need on your resume.
It is personalized to your resume, and is the best way to ensure your resume will pass the automated resume filters.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
