It is well recognized that the relationship between Retail Buyer and vendor has changed in the last ten years. In the 90s and into the 2000s, it was possible—indeed essential—to build a relationship with key buyers, and on the back of that relationship, build collaborative frameworks. Whist there is an obvious risk in over generalizing, today’s buyers rotate through roles and categories much faster, making it much harder to build a personal relationship. Furthermore, those same buyers seem to be responsible for ever broader portfolios, with the result that you are competing for their attention.
While both of those trends are unwelcome in the eyes of a typical vendor, they do present opportunities for a smart vendor. Below is our checklist of tactics you can use to get closer to your buyers.
You are simultaneously trying to get your head around new categories, review ranges, meet vendors, provide forecasts, work on margin optimization, planograms, fighting fires and so on. It’s a high pressure environment. What gets your attention? The crisis of the day—late delivery of a promoted line, deadline for copy, sales meeting to discuss missed sales targets, failed QA tests on a new range, and more internal meetings…
Vendors are constantly wanting to meet with you to talk about new ranges, getting more space allocated to their products, getting new packaging signed off, and more. Yet you don’t have the Open to Buy because last month’s sales missed the target.
In short, it is a stressful environment to operate in. Buyers deserve some sympathy!
How can you turn this situation to your advantage? By seeing the world through your buyer’s eyes and helping them navigate through this ocean of conflicting interests.
How to Strengthen Your Relationship With Buyers
Read Now
Try to be impartial and objective. Remember you are trying to help your buyer understand the business and look good. If done well, they will be very grateful.
If you make your buyer look good, you will have a much more influential seat at the table from which to negotiate.
Using a retailer’s own POS data to provide objective, timely, fact based and rational recommendations on how to drive higher sales with less stock is almost guaranteed to ensure your buyer will want to have you around, providing advice and input.
Finally, whenever you meet a buyer in a store, make sure you have at least one recommendation on how to improve their business in a category in which you have no interest. This demonstrates to the buyer that you are genuinely trying to help them, even though you have nothing to gain from the recommendation. It establishes credibility and trust—the two currencies that will see you succeed with your buyer.