Wine Buyer for France - London (Wine Jobs: Wine Retail & Sommelier)

  Enotria & Coe

  London, Greater London, England

Overview of role
The Buyer will be the first point of contact for the suppliers within the French category and will be
responsible for all negotiations, purchasing, stock control, quality and liaising with brand management
on communication, marketing and PR activity.
On an ongoing basis the Buyer has full responsibility for:
• Liaising in a timely manner with internal and external stakeholders
• Securing allocations and minimising stock holding/purchase liability
• Achieving the most advantageous payment terms
• Obtaining marketing contributions/free stock
• Ensuring that optimum quality is a priority factor in the purchasing strategy
• Pursuing new opportunities to represent new prestigious wineries
The Buyer will also support the Fine Wine team, whose responsibilities include:
• Proactive buying: Working within a budget (TBC) to draw and replenish a balanced list of
fine wines from key international regions at competitive prices and from reliable UK sources
and existing partners.
• Reactive buying: Sourcing fine wines to respond to the specific demand from our account
base (on trade) often at short notice mainly from UK sources.
Duties & responsibilities
Price and terms negotiation
• When negotiating pricing, to use knowledge of UK market and locality of supplier as a
framework and ensure competitive pricing for Enotria&Coe.
• In each negotiation opportunity, secure maximum amount of promotional support in terms of
marketing contributions; materials; free of charge goods and extended payment terms, as
well as allocation of stock.
• In addition to the natural 12-month cycle for price and terms negotiation, to revert to
suppliers when appropriate to negotiate extra support, for example, to overcome adverse
market conditions; adjust for exchange rate variations and/or provide additional support for
specific tastings, events, and customer listings.
• In conjunction with the Head of Buying – Wine and where appropriate, negotiate distribution
contracts.
• Establish supplier service level performance expectations and monitor accordingly.

Marketing and PR
• Liaise with the Marketing team planning and organising UK market visits of suppliers and
visits to suppliers by journalists, customers and sales team.
• Ensure the Marketing team are kept informed with regard to any budgets, contributions
and/or specific marketing activity.
• Implement and monitor FOC and marketing income.
• In conjunction with the Marketing team, ensure that suppliers are kept informed of marketing
and promotional activity and that information relating to sales performance before, during
and after any marketing activity/trip/visit is communicated to the supplier.
• Work with the marketing team to agree wines to be shown at the various events,
competitions, exhibitions and tastings throughout the year and ensure suitable samples are
received in good time.
• Work with the rest of the Buying and Marketing teams in the production of annual price list
within deadlines.
‘Category supplier by proxy’
• Act as category supplier by proxy in the UK market by assisting in sell-through. This may
involve, among other activity, accompanying the sales team in the market.
• Provide additional product knowledge and sales support where appropriate in conjunction
with Marketing for the category.
Quality Control
• Participate in weekly quality control tastings.
• Carry out ad-hoc quality control tastings.
• Be responsible for any product recall in accordance with the company Serious Incident
Management Procedure.
• Deal promptly with any quality issues with the suppliers and ensure in all such dealings that
all costs are re-invoiced to the supplier.
• Regularly re-claim the cost of any returns.
• Ensure technical specifications are obtained.
• Agree, establish and monitor a strict product and quality specification across all wines.
Stock control
• Maintain good, close working relationships with the Supply Chain Director and team.
• Ensure that all relevant data for all wines in the category is received from suppliers and
communicated to the Supply Chain team.
• Ensure reserves are held at source when necessary and monitor these ‘floor-stock’ levels.
• React quickly to any unforeseen volume movements – minimising financial and supply risk.
• Ensure that the Supply Chain team are kept informed of all issues relating to stock control
including but not limited to, lead times, production schedules, bottling line limitations and any
relevant production or dry packaging issues.
• In the course of regular range review, identify any slow moving or overstocked products and
initiate appropriate action to remedy this (e.g. bin-end, promotion, special price or return to
supplier).
Communication relating to suppliers and wines
• Communicate internally and to the customers any changes to vintages and labels; any out
of stock/replacement situations and generally any changes to the published portfolio.
• Take full responsibility for information communicated in Company price lists, including
supplementary and bin-end lists.

Ensure that the company website is fully up to date and accurate with all supplier and wine
information.
Market Information
• Ensure that the suppliers and all other interested parties are kept informed of market data.
This to include market share; growth and decline of countries, regions, wine styles, grape
varieties, retail and trade selling prices and competitor activity.
• Provide suppliers with appropriate sales data, line by line, key new listings, relevant PR and
Marketing activity. This will be a constant flow of information and should include assessment
of annual plans/terms.
• Monitor sales on a regular basis to identify key performing or underperforming lines and
report on how this compares to the UK market.
New product development
• In conjunction with the Head of Buying – Wine, and in line with the Buying strategy, drive
new product development.
• Ensure that the market potential of all new products is fully researched and that the style,
packaging and format are designed to put Enotria&Coe in a market leading position.
• Deal with all the technical aspects of selection and supply.
• Review, on an ongoing basis, the stylistic trends of the wines and make recommendations
as appropriate.
• Guide suppliers towards production of appropriate styles (by customer, market sector,
variety).
• Attend wine trade events in order to maintain alternative supplier relationships and to
enhance market awareness.