Senior Buyer – Fresh – Zoom by Ocado (12 Month FTC)
Contract type: FTC – 12 months
Location: Hatfield
Working hours per week: 40 hours
Level: Senior
Application closing date: Friday 17th January 2025
About us
Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivaled service, and reassuringly good value.
We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading, joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket ocado.com. Not only is Ocado.com the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, but it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind Zoom by Ocado, our same-day grocery delivery service.
About the team and the role
Zoom by Ocado is Ocado Retail’s immediacy grocery offering, delivering groceries in under 60 minutes to customers from our fully-automated warehouses. This is a rare opportunity to become a key member of a dynamic Zoom team working to rapidly scale the business as we grow across London.
Although we work very closely with our colleagues in Ocado.com, Zoom is its own business, with a separate website and app, and a small dedicated team that looks works very collaboratively looking after all customer marketing, commercial ranging, pricing and promotions, and the E-Commerce execution of the content on the website and app. So, if you want to come and work for the world's largest online-only grocer in an entrepreneurial role, this is the team for you.
At Zoom, we pride ourselves on offering the strongest proposition in the rapid delivery quick-commerce market, with a market-leading breadth of range, primarily sourced via Ocado.com, also containing unique ranges only sold on our site, alongside a bespoke promotional strategy and customer-focused pricing architecture enabling a compelling customer offering in the market.
We're looking for a Senior Buyer – Fresh to join the team to lead the Fresh and Chilled half of the Zoom by Ocado trading department. You will be responsible for managing and trading the Fresh department and line-management of the Chilled and Frozen areas, ensuring your supply base and product range is optimised, proactively using data and analysis to maximise performance and drive sales, profitability and order growth to support the growth to to support the overall Zoom by Ocado strategy and goals.
What you’ll do
- Lead the Fresh and Chilled & Frozen trading areas to deliver the Zoom trading P&L and report against KPIs, managing Fresh directly and line-management of the Chilled & Frozen Trading Executive
- Manage and enhance the category-specific promotional strategy for this half of the Zoom trading business
- Deliver optimised category range reviews, promotional plans and strategic change programmes as we optimise our offering across our multiple sites, translating the strategy into clear plans to drive growth
- Work with key suppliers to share insight, agree and deliver market-leading plans aligned to the channel growth strategy and execute collaborative projects delivering against key insight requirements
- Analyse and assess performance issues and opportunities using data and reporting tools, leading the team to devise and implement solutions
- Work closely with Supply Chain to manage availability and purge targets
- Forecast and manage the trading budget effectively, with clear communication on both live and upcoming challenges to performance including weekly Monday KPI reporting, Mid-week Trade updates, as well as longer-term outlooks
- End to end management of multiple projects, establishing and building relationships across the Zoom team, wider Ocado business and Ocado Group Logistics and Operations colleagues to deliver step-changes in performance
- Proactively seek ways to improve the proposition. This will include refining existing processes and ways of working with suppliers, Ocado.com buyers, Supply Chain and senior-level stakeholders
- Develop and lead a high-performing team, providing day to day coaching and feedback to ensure they exceed their targets and giving them the opportunities to be their best
Who you are
- Significant retail buying experience
- Prior experience managing Fresh and/or Chilled range and supply bases
- Excited about working in food, retail and the quick-commerce market
- Proficient in Excel, with prior experience working with customer, transactional or financial data
- Leadership capability/people management
- Influencing and stakeholder management
- Supplier management
- Project management capability
- Able to analyse complex sets of data
At Ocado Retail we're passionate about building careers and skills by giving people access to new and diverse opportunities. If you don't tick all the boxes above but have a curious mindset, a passion for learning and adaptable skills to bring to the role, we still want to hear from you!
What’s in it for you
By joining Ocado Retail you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail.
If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:
Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with the option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
Never miss the moments that matter: Blended/Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy an extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.
Our Hiring Process
Lucky for us, we get loads of great applications and we really appreciate that so many people put the time and effort in to apply. To recognise that, we treat all applications respectfully and fairly. So, if yours stands out, you’ll follow our standard hiring process – one of our Talent Partners will talk you through this in an initial call.
Everyone’s welcome
We’re an equal opportunities employer. That means that we make sure all potential colleagues are treated fairly and equally. If you require reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know on the application form.