Buying & Sourcing

Evaluate potential and existing vendors across fill rate, on-time delivery, defect rate, margin contribution, and compliance. Pull scorecards quarterly, review during line reviews. Track chargebacks for late shipments, mislabeled ASNs, routing guide violations. Cross-reference vendor capacity against your open-to-buy. For import vendors, assess factory audit results, lead times, and duty exposure.

Calculate true landed cost: FOB price, freight (ocean/air/truck), duties (HTS classification), customs brokerage, warehouse receiving, ticketing/labeling, and distribution allocation. Compare landed cost against retail and initial markup (IMU) targets. For import programs, manage letter of credit timing, currency exposure, and tariff changes. Every penny matters when you're working on 50-point margins.

Develop private label programs from concept to shelf: identify white space in the assortment, write product specs, source factories, manage lab testing and quality standards, design packaging, set price points below national brand equivalents. Track cannibalization rates against branded alternatives. Manage the development calendar — concept to shelf can take 6-18 months depending on category.