Assistant Buyer - Furniture

Internal use only - Grade H

About us

We’re the team behind digital retailer Very. 

Our purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do. 

And we want our people to get more out of life too! If you’re high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you’ll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go. 

If you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers. ✨ 

About the team

The Furniture team develops over 2000 products a season under our own brand The Very Collection as well as working with some of the biggest brands in the industry such as Silentnight and Dusk to deliver our customer trend led, great quality and competitive priced furniture for their home. The category covers bedroom, living, dining, bathroom and office furniture and accounts for half of the Home category in terms of sales. Developing stylish product and driving quality to delight are customers is key. Now is a great time to join this fast paced, energetic team as we start AW27 planning and product development as well as onboarding some exciting new brands. 

About the role

We have two opportunities for Assistant Buyers on our Home team, sitting within the Furniture category.  

1 x Assistant Buyer - Branded Furniture 

1 x Assistant Buyer - Own Brand Furniture  

You will get exposure to the full buying cycle, so they are great roles to expand your skills.  

Day to day you will be meeting and managing brand and supplier relationships, developing products and reviewing samples, developing commercial range-plans suited to our customer, producing and presenting reports at trade meetings on trends, forecasts and opportunities.   

Key Responsibilities: 

• Relationship management: both internally and externally will be important, building strong relationships to maximise commercial opportunities – Key relationships day to day email management with supply chain.  
• Commercial awareness: Awareness of the market is key, keeping track of competitor activity, market trends and price positioning. 
• Maintaining relationships with brands in line with our values 
• Able to deputise for the Buyer in key meetings. 
• Able to delegate or take lead and make decisions under pressure. 
• Formulating Range Frameworks/Brand Plans alongside merchandising functions 

About you

• You will be highly organised with great communication skills. 
• You know how to analyse performance and apply lessons learnt to future range building. 
• You can pre-empt potential challenges that may impact team or trading and take steps to minimise them before they arise. 

• You will build and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders. 
• Able to deputise for the Buyer in key meetings. 
• Liaison with SMT and can clearly articulate category performance 
• Trading actions – identifying how to maximise best sellers and identifying worst sellers and minimising risk. 
• Able to delegate/ take the lead where required 

Some of our benefits

• Flexible, hybrid working model
• Inclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews
• £250 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays
• LinkedIn learning access
• Bonus potential (performance and business-related)
• Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk

• Matched pension up to 6%
• More benefits can be found on our career site

How to apply 

Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.  

What happens next? 

Our talent acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have. If it feels like we’re a good match, we’ll share your CV with the hiring manager to review. Our interview process is tailored to each role and can be in-person or held remotely.  

You can expect a two stage interview process for this position:  

1st stage - A one hour remote interview with the hiring team to discuss your skills and relevant experience + competency questions. This is also a great opportunity to find out more about the role and to ask any questions you may have.  

2nd stage - A one hour on-site interview, where you will present back some pre-work and answer our values-based questions.

As an inclusive employer please do let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.  

If you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here. 

Diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities

We’re building a culture of everyday inclusion, and welcome applications from anyone who believes they can do the job. We don’t discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

We want our recruitment process to be accessible to everyone. If you need reasonable adjustments to apply, interview, or perform a role, let us know via talentacquisition@theverygroup.com. We’ll be happy to support you.

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer and have nine brilliant colleague networks - including DAWN (Disability Awareness at Very) and Think (Neurodiversity at Very) - that are helping us make Very an even more inclusive place to work.