Purchasing and Partnerships Manager

Position Announcement

At Utah Valley University, we’re seeking a strategic and relationship-driven professional to help elevate the UVU Store brand through strong vendor partnerships and innovative retail experiences. As the Purchasing and Partnerships Manager, you’ll collaborate with vendors to bring the UVU brand to life—curating unique products, driving creative collaborations, and ensuring every offering reflects the spirit and pride of the Wolverine community.

This position offers the opportunity to blend business insight with creativity in a dynamic, team-oriented environment. You’ll play a key role in shaping how customers experience the UVU brand, from product selection to in-store engagement. If you’re passionate about building meaningful partnerships, creating standout retail experiences, and contributing to a university that values innovation and collaboration, UVU is the place to make your mark.

Summary of Responsibilities

• Establish relationships with new vendors and suggest ideas to store marketing team to align with vendor wants. Track product efficiency and use launches for quick turns and seasonal products. Find vendors with low minimums to create some exclusivity.
• Continue relationships with existing partners and look for store enhancements from new and existing vendors. This could include negotiating branded signage or fixtures to simplify the shopping experience for consumers while creating additional marketing opportunities for the vendor.
• Challenge team members to seek relationships with new vendors and oversee progress of relationships, get involved when orders are being placed and track financials for buying team
• Create price tiered purchasing plans across categories and push it down to the rest of the buying team
• Work with operations team to discount product on the floor and merchandise section
• Across categories have a good, better, best option with according prices
• Plan product drops by working with vendors to establish strategic drop dates based on product turns and timelines.
• Look for unique opportunities to be first in the industry to collaborate with certain brand. An emphasis on local brands or products created by past or current students is suggested.
• Establish internal brand and utlizing printing services to create price friendly options. This will help us to establish price sensitive options that all students can afford and allow us to create low priced items for events.
• Work with departments across campus to fulfill merchandise needs
• Create efficient and user friendly way to allow departments to submit internal orders
• Oversee other buyers in tracking and fulfilling campus orders and properly processing payments
• Have price friendly options to meet all campus needs.
• Manage other buyers in choosing vendors, assign smaller orders to other buyers and oversee open to buy for them.
• Strategize product clearance strategy to move old inventory by constantly analyzing open to buy numbers and tracking product effieciency.
• Create 60-90-180 day clearance strategy for products when planning out seasonal assortments and set these dates in the system when doing item creation.
• Work with operations team to schedule cycle counts and manage inventory by creating timelines within RFsmart program.
• Work with operations team to merchandise new product efficiently and on specialized racks from vendors. Additionally, work with store marketing team to build timeline for social strategy and timeline to get products listed online based on shipping timelines.
• Use social media to push new product drops. Work with social media team to create posts and stories that poll students to continue to meet product needs and desires.
• Find creative ways to move expiring products. This can be done through flash sales, yearly/season sales, gifts with purchases online and/or in-store. Utilize this to maintain healthy inventory level.

Qualifications / Licenses / Certifications

Two or more years of partnership or retail buying experience is required.

Preferred Qualifications:
Bachelor's Degree and multiple years of purchasing experience preferred.

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities

Knowledge:

• Knowledge of how to manage an open to buy, product discount timelines, and product launches.
  

• Skilled in Excel and Netsuite, able to easily interprate data, ability to build and maintain vendor relationships.
  

• Able to work collaboratively with other departments and vendors, self-starter with ability to innovate.

EEO Statement:

UVU employment decisions are made on the basis of an applicant’s qualifications and ability to perform the job without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age (40 and over), disability, veteran status, pregnancy, childbirth, or pregnancy-related conditions, genetic information, or other bases protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.