Assistant Manager, Merchandising, SEA

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. 

Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible.

A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive.

Primary Purpose:

The Assistant Buying Manager (Retail) supports the development and execution of seasonal retail assortments across SEAO stores. This role helps deliver sales, margin, and inventory productivity targets by managing buys, analyzing in‑season performance, and partnering closely with cross functional teams.

The ideal candidate is commercially sharp, detail‑oriented, and passionate about retail product and consumer trends.

Key Responsibilities

1. Seasonal Buying & Range Building

• Building store assortments aligned to brand strategy and consumer insights.
• Conduct product performance analysis and Go-To-Market materials to inform buy decisions.
• Prepare buy sheets, style/SKU projections, and size curves for store clusters.
• Support pricing set‑up and seasonal pricing updates across the system.

2. In‑Season Trade & Performance Management

• Monitor weekly sales, sell‑throughs, stock levels, and replenishment flow across stores.
• Highlight risks and opportunities by style/category to influence in‑season actions.
• Recommend reorders, replenishment adjustments, and markdowns to optimize profitability.
• Identify slow-moving inventory and propose tactical plans (markdowns, consolidation, store transfers).

3. Inventory & Product Flow Management

• Work closely with Planning, Allocator and Supply Chain to ensure on‑time product delivery.
• Track PO status, shipment ETAs, and resolve delays, shortages, or discrepancies.

• Manage product lifecycle. Ensure ideal stock holdings by proactively partnering with Global and APAC teams to monitor and maintain healthy inventory levels.

4. Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Planning on forecasting, OTB, and sales/margin targets.
• Work with VM, Marketing and L&D to ensure product presentation aligns with buying intent and launch priorities.
• Support Store Operations with product knowledge, investment and consumer insights, and action plans.

5. Reporting & Analysis

• Demonstrates strong presentation skills to effectively pitch buying strategies and summarize key business impacts that inform global product development.
• Prepare weekly trade reports with insights and action recommendations.
• Track competitor activity, pricing, and market trends to support commercial decision-making.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date data across internal systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Merchandising, Fashion, Marketing, or related fields.
• More than 5 years of experience in retail buying, merchandising, or planning.
• Strong analytical and numerical skills; proficiency in Excel a must.
• High attention to detail and strong organizational skills.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work with multiple stakeholders.
• Passionate about retail, product, and consumer insights.

Key Competencies

• Commercial & Consumer-Oriented – Understands retail KPIs and consumer behavior.
• Analytical Thinker – Turns data into actionable decisions.
• Collaboration – Works effectively with cross-functional partners and store teams.
• Agility – Responds quickly to in-season performance shifts.
• Execution Excellence – Strong follow-through with a high standard of accuracy.

Our Competencies for All Employees

• Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.

Our Competencies for All People Managers

• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.

Kate Spade is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant's or employee's qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under the consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law. Visit Kate Spade at www.katespade.com. 

General Description of All Benefits: Our company offers a number of benefits to eligible employees, including health benefits (medical, dental, vision), life insurance and disability insurance. Eligible employees are also able to enroll in our company’s 401(k) savings plan and take paid time off for wellness needs and vacations. For additional information about our benefits Click Here - U.S Store Compensation & Benefits
General Description of Other Compensation: Eligible employees will be able to receive discounts on certain products and incentive compensation.