🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3621C3BB.7D8C022C@student.monash.edu.au>,
  Yuen Shan Stephanie Tang <ystan4@student.monash.edu.au> wrote:
> Topic--The Buyer
> Is it necessary for buyers to have store experience in order to be a
> good buyer?
Absolutely vital.

> Discuss the pros and cons of this proposition.  Using your own
> organisation or any retail business analyse what the buying function
> does, how it is structured and what makes"good" buyers.  Describe the
> attributes of a good buyer which might not necessarily be developed by
> store experience.  Has the role changed in any way in recent
> years?.......
> How are buyers recruited,what training is given and what attributes are
> seen as most important.  What recommendations or conclusions would you
> make concerning career paths, selection and training in order to build
> the most effective buying team.
> Can anyone kindly give me some idea on the above issues ? Urgently
> needed for assignment.  I don't have experience in this field so I am
> totally in trouble with this issue.

A buyer's function is to get the best price for his/her company, from
suppliers.  Basically it's comparison shopping; trying to get greatest
quality for lowest price.  Accordingly, you want good comparison shoppers.

Recruitment of buyers is usually done from sales/marketing people (who are
far harder to "put one over" on, being intimately familiar themselves with
the process of ripping people off).  Advertising people, for similar reasons,
*can* make good buyers, unless they're the sort of advertising people who are
given to believing their own spiels.

In-depth familiarity with the industry in question, and use of the products,
is vital.  If recruiting a buyer for, say, a computer company, I'd be most
inclined to hire a computer technical expert with sales experience, or a
computer sales expert with technical experience.

They also must be in constant communication with their clients, the staff
they are buying for.  There is no point in buying goods the staff do not
consider suitable or consider second-rate.  "Test-marketing", ie buying a few
of a different product for the users to try out, can be very helpful.

Product *use* familiarity is the one thing that store experience won't get
you, but you can make up for that, depending on the nature of the product.

Darryl.
--
Just my opinion.
This account is a spam-filter; real email d.greensill<AT>sg.qut.edu.au

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own