My friend was offered an Assistant Buyer position at Zulily. Should they be concerned about the negative Glassdoor reviews? Quite a few of the posts here on Blind seem to be staying stay away. For context it’s their first job in the fashion industry (recent graduate). Is this a good position to start their career or keep looking?
They will def learn A LOT! A lot or work but great exposure and nice team!
How are the internal tools at Zulily ?
The internal tools for merch are all manual and nothing is truly automated. Our systems are independent from each other and are not truly connected. If one process fails you have to go back to correct that before driving progress along for your business.
Great for new grad, they can learn a lot at Zulily. I’ve also seen assistant buyer changed to different departments like analyst, marketing, ect.
If you a recent college grad, now is the time to grind and work overtime. Don't be afraid of long hours when you young and haven't settled down yet.
Rather move to Amazon instead you’ll learn A LOT in your initial days but then blind is not a great fan of Amazon
Can you share salary information for this role?
Assistant Buyer is definitely a starter role. I would be wary of expectations of promoting up in 1 to 2 years. No matter how much they say it’s a developmental role. Lots of Assistant Buyer’s have stayed in that role for a long time. How the AB’s role is viewed is very dependent on the Buyers perception of the relationship, in Merchandising the Buyer is the Boss and the owner of their “business”. The Merchandising Managers are more concerned that their buyers are taken care of and producing. AB’s can be expendable. That said overall AB’s work well together, develop friendships and learn a lot. It is a great role for learning how to have a “real” job and it’s great for learning the ropes of corporate structure communication and relationships. They continually look for ambitious people which I think can shoot them in the foot sometimes. As other’s have noted AB’s can and will try to move around the company if they can, and this movement is generally due to being ambitious and fostering relationships. It’s not uncommon for AB’s to move to marketing, analyst, product quality or vendor operations. You really do learn a lot, the office location is beautiful and there’s a lot of places to go out for happy hours. The vast majority of people are great and will still be connections long after you leave. Truly ambitious AB’s usually jump over to Amazon as Vendor/Account Managers with at least a 40% salary increase in a couple years.
Look at Nordstrom as well :)
Attrition rate is at an all time high due to the pressure and unreasonable expectations passed onto the AB. Work flows downwards very sharply and with more then dozen plus merch roles open. Everyone has recently taken on more, and not just more AB tasks and responsibilities, but more project management, Buyer, Site Merchandising and data analyst tasks to help drive the business. It's quite possibly one of the most undervalued and underutilized roles at the company. And one of the most severely underpaid roles too that involves using dozens of soft skills to help achieve your daily and weekly tasks. There are tech skills you have to adapt as well. We manage the entire companies inventory in a day to day/week to week basis which is a lot of work too since it's entirely depending on your category and who your boss is.
Pay is tough, but for a new grad maybe that’s not a deal breaker if their goal is to gain experience.
Highly depends on the Buyer/Senior Buyer and/or MM above them. Generally 14 hour days or more and some Sunday work. Some higher ups do protect Satudays but its a joke for the most part. Since this is your friend’s first job. Buckle up, learn, and move on after you’ve learned what you needed. Good luck to your friend!
This is very true. You are expected to audit and review events before going live. Events go live every day including weekends. Fridays can be hectic as you try to button everything up, but you will still need to check in through the weekend to make sure the events are 100% complete and accurate. Delays with studio can be one of the biggest frustrations and cause most of the overtime since you can’t account for them when managing your own time. Expect to have your computer physically with you during big retail holidays if you are managing blowout sales. Checking in on Xmas and New Years is not uncommon. As others said when you’re young it can be easier to take on these expectations and produce. It’s harder if you have family or kids who need your attention on the weekends.
This sounds truly miserable, how does one cope? Certainly not possible if you have a family...