Established in 1973, Roots is a proudly Canadian lifestyle brand that celebrates authenticity, quality, and community. Inspired by the great outdoors, we create timeless, sustainable apparel and leather goods designed for comfort and everyday adventure. At Roots, we believe in fostering a culture of inclusivity, creativity, and teamwork – where every team member plays a role in shaping our brand’s legacy.
If you bring passion to everything you do, lead with integrity, and believe in the power of collaboration to drive growth, we’d love to have you on our journey!
Nature & Scope → Your Role at Roots The Senior Buyer executes the merchandising vision within the Women's Apparel market — owning in-season trading decisions, financial targets, markdown, and end-to-end inventory execution through embedded Planning and Allocations. Through analysis of sales performance, customer demand, inventory productivity, and market trends, the Senior Buyer identifies opportunities and risks across the product lifecycle to maximize sales, margin, and inventory productivity. Working in close partnership with the Merchandising Manager, Planning Manager, Allocation Analyst, and other cross-functional teams, the Senior Buyer provides data-driven insights on silhouette, fit, colour, and product performance that drive future assortments and ensure inventory investments support consumer demand and financial KPIs.
Key Responsibilities → How You’ll Make an Impact
- Quantifies seasonal buy quantities and inventory investment for North America by channel, grade, store, and size profile to achieve sales, margin, and inventory objectives.
- Owns in-season trading decisions, including replenishment and markdowns, trading within current market conditions with speed and decisiveness.
- Manages Open-to-Buy (OTB) in partnership with Planning, identifying risks, opportunities, and recommended actions, and reports performance against plan.
- Owns business analysis of category and collection performance by style, colour, size, fit, and silhouette, monitoring sales, margin, inventory productivity, and forecast accuracy.
- Owns and analyzes size curves and size scale architecture by category and style, using historical performance, customer demand, and fit insights to optimize inventory productivity.
- Manages rolling sales forecasts and recommends receipt and inventory adjustments based on changing business trends; identifies and executes replenishment and chase opportunities.
- Supports lifecycle inventory strategies, including markdown plans informed by product lifecycle, financial objectives, and business trends.
- Develops financial hindsight and identifies key learnings to improve future seasonal assortments; leads and presents weekly, monthly, and quarterly business reviews to cross-functional teams.
- Champions a customer-first approach, incorporating consumer feedback, reviews, and purchasing behaviour into buying decisions and future assortment recommendations.
- Provides consumer and commercial insights — including silhouette, fit, colour, fabric, size selling patterns, price elasticity, and white space opportunities — that influence future product strategies.
- Partners with the Merchandising Manager on assortment strategy and depth alignment, and with the Planning Manager on sales, inventory, receipt, and flow strategies at the class level.
- Collaborates with the Allocation Analyst to optimize channel distribution, store allocation, and size blends; embeds Planning for financial rigor and Allocations for inventory precision.
- Partners with Product Development by providing buy projections to support costing, material commitments, and production planning.
- Collaborates with E-commerce to optimize product launches, online exclusives, and in-season product performance,
and with Marketing to align product insights with promotional and campaign strategies.
- Aligns with Finance on financial targets and with GTM Operations on calendar milestones, leveraging real-time data to optimize allocation and replenishment.
Qualifications & Experience → The Skills You Bring
- 5–8+ years of apparel buying experience.
- Experience working in a direct-to-consumer or omnichannel retail environment is preferred.
- Solid understanding of inventory management, assortment planning, and retail financial metrics.
- Advanced analytical skills with strong proficiency in Excel and merchandising systems.
- Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional teams using data-driven recommendations.
- Ability to interpret data and translate findings into actionable recommendations.
- Strong presentation and communication skills.
- Passion for Women's apparel, consumer behaviour, and retail trends.
At Roots we appreciate that skills and expertise are cultivated through a range of experiences. We are committed to reflecting Canada's diverse landscape in our products, team, and workplace culture. We value your unique perspective and encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet every listed requirement. Accommodations are available for applicants throughout the recruitment process. Please note: Roots uses technology-assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to support parts of the recruitment process. These tools may be used to help review applications, assess qualifications, and support interview documentation. All hiring decisions are reviewed and made by our Talent team and key leaders involved in the recruitment process.
The posted salary range is intended to reflect the competitive market value of this role and is provided to support transparency in our hiring process. Final compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to internal equity, relevant skills, demonstrated knowledge, experience, and overall fit for the position.
📌 Sr. Buyer, Womens-Buying (Toronto)
🏢 Roots
📍 Toronto