Buying & Selling the trends. . . !

Hello Lynn & Clare: People ask me all the time about being a buyer or becoming a buyer. Many people have asked to go along with me on buying trips just to see what's it like or what I do. Let me just say this: it's not easy being a buyer! I have been on more than 100 buying trips in eleven years so I have refined the job as much as possible. I'm also adjusted to the pressure. I can also add that I don't really have any "trade secrets" (so to speak) regarding how we buy at J. LaMore but there is a skill to this as well as being as informed as possible about sales, designers, trends, customers, etc. That skill is hard to explain, difficult to teach, and very unforgiving when you're wrong.

As a buyer one of the first things you need to do is love your job. The second is to know your customer and stay focused. You just can't always buy what you want to wear. The third thing you need to do is keep in mind your open-to-buy budget so you can fill all your departments.

The following of trends is where the experienced buyer will always outsell the inexperienced buyer. It's interesting but as a buyer your job is to sell.

Trends are fun and exciting but the hype from designers and the media about a certain trend doesn't always work when it comes to selling that trend. Take for example the Ugg boot. It was hot and a trend that lasted a long time by fashion standards and then suddenly it ended. If you were caught with a storage center full of Ugg boots, you were in trouble. The same goes for $350 jeans as well as many other trendy fashion statements. Knowing when to get out of a trend is just as important as when to get in. It's tricky and it helps to have a knowlegable staff because you will have moments of self doubt. There's to much money at stake to do it all on your own.

So you can see, being a buyer is even hard to write about and knowing what trend will make you money is even worse. Boutiques are not department stores and how each buyer operates is completely different. I hope this helped a little bit.

Jennifer