Trading roles

• Non trading roles
• Trading roles
  • Merchandisers

Trading careers at ASDA House

• Modular Planners
• Online Merchandisers
• Trading Assistants
• Supply Analysts
• Buyers
• Buying Managers
• Financial Services Product Managers
• Trading Technical Managers
• Designers - Trends Team
• Merchandisers
• General Merchandise Development Technologist

Modular Planners

As Modular Planners we’ve a wide ranging role, which is predominantly concerned with displaying ranges of products in stores in the most attractive and logical way for our customers. We create shelf plans which stipulate how displays should be arranged according to price and brand and make sure that these guidelines are followed across different stores. We offer our customers a choice of products and aim to exceed their expectations through developing industry leading store layouts and ranges in our stores.

It’s a role which draws on many skills including design and business knowledge and the ability to communicate effectively with ASDA House colleagues, suppliers and stores. In particular, we work very closely with the buying teams to display the ranges most effectively; driving sales growth whilst finding new ways to take costs out of the business.

Online Merchandisers

We’ve identified online shopping as a major development area for us in the next few years. We’ve offered grocery home shopping through www.ASDA.com for some time now and our next step is to offer General Merchandise products, which are all our non-food ranges. We liaise closely with trading teams to ensure that products are available for online sales and to plan product launches too.

Other responsibilities include developing website content and making the web shopping experience as easy and enjoyable as shopping in one of our stores.

Trading Assistants

We’re the engine room of the Trading Teams and this role is a fantastic introduction into the world of trading. We co-ordinate between internal teams and external suppliers, so we need to be strong organisers and planners with a really good grasp of the numbers.

We’re involved in everything from making sure that our suppliers are meeting deadlines to working with our Modular Planners to launch new ranges in store so they can meet our tight deadlines. We work closely with the Trends Team on product designs for new ranges and carry out analysis of our products’ performance.

Amongst all this, our main responsibility is to manage the administration of our teams' products, analyse sales and be informed about competitor activity. By doing this we ensure that our buying teams are able to make informed decisions about key factors for our ranges such as prices to sell at, prices to buy at and volume of stock to order.

Supply Analysts

Supply Analysts are vital in making sure that our customers get the products they want, when they want them, but not at the expense of our stores and warehouses being over stocked - it’s a careful balancing act!

As Supply Analysts, we often work many months in advance, for example when planning for the Christmas period or for major events like the World Cup. Our role can also involve anticipating trends in the early stages and making sure that we can get the products on the shelves at the right price and in the right volume.

We work with suppliers and stores to get a real grip on any replenishment issues. On occasions when we do find ourselves overstocked or under-supplied, we use influencing skills internally and externally to resolve the issue.

Buyers

There’s a great deal more to being an ASDA Buyer than simply buying products that we can sell to our customers at the best possible prices.

Our Buyers run their own mini business within ASDA, maximising profit and minimising waste, so we need to have a real commercial head! We negotiate with our suppliers and we keep in close communication with stores, to have a strategic vision for the category we’re working in and a great overview of the category in general.

Buying Managers

A Buying Manager leads the team of Buyers, coaching and supporting them to make the right buying decisions for the business. It’s our role to take a strategic overview of the market, as well as taking wider economic considerations into account such as shifting consumer needs, inflationary pressures and competitor activity.

Through the Buying Teams, we’re responsible for ensuring that our category of product is available in the quantities needed, is of the quality required and on sale at the very best possible price.

Financial Services Product Managers

Financial services is a relatively new and very fast growing area for ASDA. It means customers can now pick up car insurance or children’s savings plans when they do their weekly shopping and enjoy the same great value too.

Financial Services Product Managers are responsible for working with third party suppliers to provide and market exceptionally good value products for our customers.

Trading Technical Managers

Our Technical Managers make sure that everything we sell is high quality, safe, ethically sourced and meets all our current legislation.

For food we make sure that our products exceed our customers’ expectations in terms of taste, quality, freshness and shelf life and for non-food we make sure that all our products are manufactured in and meet the highest safety and quality standards.

We work closely with Buyers to understand what products we plan to introduce and with suppliers to ensure that they are producing them to our very strict guidelines. They will often visit producers to confirm, for example, that organic products are being grown following the correct specifications.

Designers - Trends Team

Our Trends Team works with our General Merchandise Trading Team to develop new products, usually starting 12 to 15 months before they’re due to be launched in store, so we think really far ahead! General Merchandise includes all our products, which are not food, such as soft furnishings and other homewares.

A key part of our product development is the design and we have many opportunities for designers to be involved in projects from the initial research stage, right through to producing the packaging design and point of sale material.

Our Designers work closely with the Buying Teams to develop the ranges and to ensure that all our products combine quality with a strong value message, so they need to be creative with a commercial focus.

General Merchandise Development Technologist

Without our contribution to the business, ASDA would, quite simply, not be able to sell most of our General Merchandise, or non food, products.

We’re responsible for testing products to ensure they both exceed our customers’ expectations and meet all health and safety legislation. So, for example, we check that all the ASDA brand toys that go on our shelves are safe to play with, which is a role with real responsibility.

We ensure that we’re aware of new products, and product categories, on the market and see that when they are introduced at ASDA they are safe to use and well made whilst still being low priced. We also support Buyers on supplier trips to make sure that our production specifications are followed precisely in the manufacturing process.