Stephanie Payne Email & Phone Number

Hockley, Gb

Hockley, England, United Kingdom

Responsible for the trading of Health & Beauty, Home, Fashion Accessories & Jewellery categories within Digiflex’s product portfolio. This involves sourcing new products (including custom product development) and regularly reviewing stock levels and sales.

Worked with Farfetch as a self-employed freelancer following redundancy from Clintons and a maternity break in 2020. This role enabled me to continue working flexibly around my young family and allowed me to learn more about website functionality and develop my writing skills.

Working on the Paper team, I was responsible for Clintons’ Easter and speciality season card buys, managing all critical path stages from initial strategy planning and product & packaging development and selection, through to timely delivery into stores. Both of these sub-departments achieved positive sales growth while I was managing them, which was great to see.In addition to this, I supported the Senior Buyer with the building of all other seasonal card ranges by attending planning and sign off meetings, regularly analysing bestsellers and making suggestions for future design development. I met with suppliers (both existing and potential new contacts) and monitored which stores benefitted most from ranging each season, planning top up buys and allocations as needed. My role also involved post-season stock management, briefing and signing off artwork and analysing Clintons’ key competitors.I also briefed and reviewed POS artwork, helped the ecommerce and customer services teams with product queries, attended consumer research forums and worked with the VM and marketing teams to create visual display guidelines for stores.

Dartford, Kent

At Cargo I held responsibility for all seasonal specific buys within the Decorative Home Accessories (Dec Accs) department, covering cards, wrap, gift items and Christmas decorations. I also assisted with product selection for the core/non-seasonal Dec Accs range.The role primarily involved sourcing off the shelf home and gift product through visits to UK and European trade shows (Heimtex, Maison et Objet, Ambiente), negotiating delivery dates and working with the merchandising team to build cohesive home and accessory ranges.I also developed Cargo branded home and stationery ranges with UK based suppliers in exclusive prints for AW15.

London, United Kingdom

Promoted to SBAA working on four product areas including the largest value sales area within the Gifts team, Novelties. As part of my increased role I had input in selecting a top store Halloween gift range as part of the AW13 season, and I started developing some of my own product suggestions with suppliers from SS14. Some of these became bestsellers in their categories, and went on to expand into a character program which continued for a further three seasons, which was great to see. From this I then held responsibility for the development of the entire 2015 Valentines Novelties buy for Paperchase. This covered both own branded product development with Far East suppliers and also off-the-shelf product selection, and based on the successful outcome of this project I was given full buying responsibility for the Stickers sub-section within Novelties. I was also involved with selecting top store novelty books for AW14 and SS15 ranges, and had previously helped with online features for the Paperchase website.

London

I started working with the Gifts team at Paperchase on Celebration and Underglass product areas. My responsibilities included raising products and orders using the Merret system, tracking orders with Damco, communicating with suppliers, managing samples and reviewing sales. I also updated various range plans and order tracking documents regularly, visited trade shows e.g Maison et Objet, Top Drawer and Spring & Autumn Fair, and organised supplier meetings. I have assisted with sourcing new products, contributed to team strategy meetings and written sections for board reports, and enjoyed seeing products I selected achieving good sell through rates. I also helped to train new BAAs into the job role.

During this time I assisted with fit meetings, managed and tracked samples, helped to set up items on the system and provided admin support to the Denim & Casualwear buying team.