Senior Buyer - Pre School & Nursery
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Argos
Closing date: 14 April 2026
Requisition ID: 400052754
About the team
You’ll join our Commercial Buying team within Argos Commercial & Digital, helping shape a fast‑moving, omni‑channel proposition for our Pre‑School & Nursery customers. This is a high‑profile area with significant growth potential, where we use customer insight, data and strong supplier partnerships to build compelling ranges and great value across both branded and own‑brand products. Our mission is to deliver trusted, relevant and innovative solutions for families shopping online and in store.
More about the role
As Senior Buyer, you’ll define and own the Pre‑School & Nursery category and range strategy, turning customer, market and commercial insight into a clear roadmap that drives profitable sales and market share growth. You’ll be accountable for end‑to‑end commercial performance—spanning sales, margin, stock, availability, digital metrics and customer satisfaction—ensuring our offer lands brilliantly across all channels.
In this role, you’ll lead range architecture, product selection and launch planning; set pricing and trading direction; and build joint business plans with both branded suppliers and internal teams developing our own‑brand ranges. You’ll negotiate commercial terms and secure funding for marketing and promotional activity, shaping a category strategy that champions safety, quality, value and innovation for young families.
You’ll work closely with Merchandising, Digital, Marketing, Finance, Product Development, Technical and Global Sourcing to optimise cost, margin and speed to market. You’ll also coach and develop a small Buying team, providing clear direction and creating an environment where pace and performance thrive.
More about you
You’re a commercially minded buying leader with a strong understanding of what parents and caregivers look for in Pre‑School & Nursery products. You’re confident using data and insight to make decisions, balancing fast‑paced trading with longer‑term range development in an omni‑channel environment.
You build strong relationships with suppliers and internal stakeholders, communicating with clarity and influencing effectively at all levels. As a people manager, you lead by example—setting clear expectations, coaching others to succeed and role‑modelling our valued behaviours and leadership standards.
Essential criteria
- Demonstrable experience operating within General Merchandise (GM) buying, owning commercial performance across sales, margin and stock/availability targets in a non‑food, omni‑channel retail environment.
- Significant experience buying within Electrical, GM or Toys categories, with responsibility for both branded ranges and own‑brand product development.
- Evidence of leading range architecture and launch planning across multiple product areas, including defining customer‑led assortments and delivering clear category roadmaps.
- Proven experience negotiating with strategic suppliers and/or working with Product Development and Global Sourcing teams, securing commercial terms and supplier‑funded promotional or marketing activity aligned to category KPIs.
- Ability to analyse performance, customer insight and market data from multiple sources and translate this into trading, pricing and promotional actions with measurable outcomes.
- People leadership capability, including setting objectives, coaching and developing others, and establishing clear ways of working that drive strong performance within a Buying team.
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We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 5% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
