hey guys welcome back to my youtube channel um yeah i'm so happy to be here to share
more knowledge and more experience um with reference to the retail sector in south africa
before we get started thank you for joining me can you please hit the subscribe button share
this video with all your entrepreneur friends who are in the sector of either making a product or
selling a service that's relevant to the retail industry in south africa everything i talk about
is within the south african context so please hit that subscribe button hit the share button
and it would really mean a lot to me if you can make a comment or ask a question
um you know with reference of what i'm going to be talking about today so today my talk my topic is
why should a buyer right why should a buyer even take the time to look at your product to look at
your product okay so i just want to start off by saying that um everything that i'm talking about
is with reference to the retail sector in south africa to give you a very quick background i
used to be a buyer which is a merchandise buyer within the retailers in south africa
all the big retailers i've worked for them so my primary job was to make sure that i
secure product on time or procure product on time and to reach the shelf on time for the customer
to be able to purchase the products that they are looking for and another purpose for my job was to
make sure that i give the customer exactly what they are asking us for right so we're fulfilling
a service to the customer of providing them the products that they need in their homes
or they want to put onto their bodies which is clothes or products that they want to use
um for personal care and hygiene so my question today is why should a buyer even take the time to
look at your product i asked this question for a reason because a lot of the entrepreneurs who are
manufacturing products or are making homemade products at home think that the actual person
within the value chain of retail to speak to or to look at their product is
the retail buyer or the retail merchandiser all right or the category manager a lot of the time or
90 percent of the time that is not the correct person to actually direct your product to
i ask this question for a reason and the reason for that is that all the suppliers that i've
actually spoken to or my clients that i deal with people who come to me and ask for assistance
for me to help them to penetrate a market they haven't really done their research to understand
the dynamics and the team that that is formed within a department of the category
that you are interested in there are so many tools that you can use to find out who
is within that department who forms their team and what are their responsibilities
entrepreneurship is not a joke if you're here not to be the best within your sector you might as
well rest because the the big boys the big players know how to dominate um their departments so i'm
gonna try keep this conversation as specific as possible um so that i don't miss um the point
that i'm trying to make so again um my question is why should a buyer even look at your products
um for the product category all right so the purpose of a buyer um in in their role right
so now let's talk okay let's be specific let's talk about um a supplier trying to penetrate a
woolies in the let's say footwear and accessories department so this particular supplier supplies
leather handbags leather wallets and liver belts okay they have a nice assortment they offer three
different types of product so they feel now okay i want to approach a retailer in order for me to
supply that particular department great so as a buyer when you walk
into that role there are already suppliers who are listed for you to work with so you walk into
your role you already inherit suppliers that have been on the supply who have been supplying your
department before you even joined the team so when you work when you then get that role
and you work within that team you already inherit suppliers that are seen as not only
um you know been in that supply chain for a while but are deemed as reliable because they
have a track record and have been supplying that particular department leather handbags
leather purses and belts for probably over five years you'll find a lot of the time
and that is because it is quite difficult to find tanneries the suppliers to supply leather and have
tanneries in south africa okay so you approach her by and you're like hi i have this product for you
but their role doesn't really particular um you know need or entail for them
to even take a look at your product category or consider uploading you as a supplier
because their job is not to fulfill that role their responsibility does not cover
sourcing new suppliers and onboarding new suppliers the role of a buyer is
to buy product so that when you walk into a store the stores are not empty you've got something to
purchase you've got something to go and pay for at the counter that you can take home because
you went into that store to select it all right so please consider that remember that that a buyer
particularly is not assigned to onboard suppliers yes there are some retailers that expect you
to do that and a lot of those retailers that expect for their buyers to onboard new supplies
are mostly fast um moving products like fmcgs for personal care color cosmetics perfumes etc
but a lot of the fashion retailers do not expect their buyers to do that point number one
and then point number two is that then who is the person responsible within that category to look
at new suppliers to look at new suppliers but before i address who is
the important person to look at the product to be able to put forward to the buyers right to say
okay here's a new supplier i just want to explain something you know within the buying process so as
i was explaining there are supplies that you know buyers inherit and they work with so the buyer's
role is to manage her department which includes in which includes sorry the existing supply base
so within the buying team you will always have a designer within this buying cycle
right at the beginning of the season the buyers do what you call okay let me explain it like this
at the beginning of the season buyers always look what happened previously in the past season
which influences the season that they are going into to do that buy
so those suppliers that supplied that supply that the department which i was referring to in
the leather department they have now privileged to see their sales they can review their sales
as often as they like on a daily or on a weekly those sales will tell the supplier and the buyer
what is the fastest moving product what color it is what shape it is
how much it is and how many units are moving you know within that season it's trading then
within the buying team now to backtrack within the buying team you have something that you call
a designer the designer also has knowledge of this daughter that i just referred to
right because daughter is king daughter can really assist you as a buyer and a supplier
to always be on point to always know what's happening in the market and to always know
how your customer is reacting to your product and to also you could you can guess that what trend is
going to be taking place within the next season then within the buying team there's a designer
within the buying process that there's always suppliers and buyers like design
conference type of thing where the suppliers are invited to come view what
that particular department has identified as the trend for the new season and what new suppliers
don't know is that they don't know what has been earmarked as what is going to be hot next season
which already puts you on the back foot because you're not being fed trends by the designer very
important if you get what i'm saying you will get what i'm saying if you want to penetrate a retail
mark retail chain can you identify who is key in the buying role the buy doesn't have time for you
nor is it their role to upload you as a supplier but the people who are off of influence within
this chain is the designer who holds the data for what happened in the past and what's going
to happen in the future and then the most key person within this chain sits in the quality teams
sits in the sourcing divisions those are the people who upload who are responsible who it
is their key responsibility to search for to find new suppliers who will you know be presented to
the buyers then the buyers will sit and have an opportunity within their buying cycle when okay
so within the buying within the buying team you also what i've referred to before as a planner
so the buyer only ever has so much space or so much otb otb is called out to buy that's their
money that they can use to buy products so they have so much budget to be able to
test a new supplier to see if they are going to be a successful supplier and be able to um to meet
the supply and demand of that particular product so yeah i have so much um things that i want to
share with you within the retail space i'm the retail whisperer the retail master so thank you
so much for joining me on this particular topic please make sure you subscribe hit the like button
share this videos with entrepreneurs in south africa who want to penetrate the market
if you want to um work with me if you want to contact me my details are in the description
drop me a mail drop me a message and i just want to say thank you thank you thank you for always
coming to watch and hear what i've got to say love my job love you guys see you in the next video the
next video we're going to tackle something even more um important in even more specific as to
who is the sourcing manager who is the quality assurance team and why are they so important
in the supply chain and how can you get a hold of them cool thank you guys see you next time bye you