Tips for a Fashion Buyer (Pure Trade Show London)

Pure London is an aspirational trade show which showcases hundreds of brands from womenswear to accessories. This is the place for buyers all over the world to find new brands to sell their collections in store.

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to go to Pure London with the buyers of Fenwick. Here is what I learnt.

1. Be in the CUSTOMERS mindset: It is important that you keep focused and remember you are not there to shop for yourself. Which is really hard to do when you are surrounded by hundreds of brands showcasing amazing clothes which are part of the spring/summer 2018 collection. Understand your customer as to what price they will pay, favourite shapes, colours and fabrics. Buying is very numerical as you have analyse your sales and know what your customers like.

2. Make sure the brands are RIGHT for each of the different departments. Fenwick is a department store and it was important that we categorise the brands by price, style, colour and fabric which were right for each of the different departments in womenswear.

3. Find brands which COMPLIMENT each other and do not COMPETE with each other. At the end of the day your job is to find brands to sell to your customer and make profits for your business. Therefore, you want your customers to buy from all the brands instead of picking one or the other. That is why every brand has to be unique and different, none can be similar otherwise your customers will only buy from one brand because they see no difference.

4. OUTFIT BUILD: Give customers the ability to build an outfit from a variety of brands. This links back to the idea of choosing brands that compliment each other, so your customers buy more.

5. STORE LAYOUT: Know your store layout, understand which brands are your strongest and your weakest, before adding new brands. Unfortunately, there will always be restrictions as to how much space you can have on the floor, so sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to move forward with new brands.

6. ASK QUESTIONS: The main questions you will be asking is "What is the retail price?", "How much can we purchase in bulk?", "What is the delivery time?", "what margins can we sell this at?" etc. It is important that you ask questions and keep in contact with the suppliers and designers.

7. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: The brands and buyers have to have a good relationship as communication is key in running a business. Having a strong relationship means that you can organise appointments and work as a team in selling the garments to make profit.

8. BUDGET: As you may always be told "money does not grow on trees" so therefore you have to always be cautious about your spending.

9. BUYING: When you are buying the clothing, there will always be a negotiation and decisions will have to be made on sizing, shapes, colour and fabric making sure it is best suited to your target market.

10. NEW SEASON: Now that the buying is complete it is time to analyse results and see your brands on the shop floor making profits. However, the cycle keeps moving forward as the next big buy will be for Autumn/Winter 2018.

I learnt so much from this experience. I hope the advice helps and gives you more of an insight into fashion buying.

Click below to watch a short video: