25 Fashion Buyer Interview Questions You Must Be Able to Answer In Your  Job Interview

Going for a job interview for a Fashion Buying or Assistant Fashion Buyer Position?  Most often the employer/ interviewer will ask you several different questions across the board including Retail Maths ( arithmetic) General Fashion Buying Terms, Retail knowledge, Customer/ Target Market knowledge, Buying Plan, Trends and more.

A lot of the interviewer’s decision is going to be based on your portfolio and your experience working in the field. If you are applying for an assistant Fashion Buying Position, and this is your first job in Fashion Buying, this can be hard as you dont have experience.  You can conquer this by doing a lot of research on the company, and impress them with your retail knowledge and understanding of their brand in the market place, and their positioning.  Here are a range of 25 questions across key categories that will help you demonstrate your stellar understanding of the job outcomes of the role, as well as your knowledge of their fashion brand and customer.

General Interview Questions

• What are you looking for in a new position?
• Why do you want to work in fashion?
• What were some of your accomplishments at your last job?
• What were some challenges and how did you overcome them at your last job?
• What did you enjoy most about your last job? What did you enjoy least?
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What Fashion Brands do you admire at the moment?
• What makes you passionate about our brand/ company?
• What experience can you bring to our brand?

The above questions are basic interview questions you could be asked about yourself, your goals, and your passion for fashion.

Retail / Brand Knowlege Questions

• Define the target market of our brand/ store, and what you believe to be our key customer.
• What do you believe to be the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to our stores/ brand?
• Who do you see as our competitors?
• What could our website/social media accounts do better?
• Who are some of your favorite influencers you could see wearing our brand?

These questions are aimed at finding out just how much you understand about the brand, the culture, and its positioning in the market place. Of course, you will be told more about company policies and company goals once working there, but a basic understanding of the brand as an industry insider is essential.

Fashion Buyer Interview Questions

• Name key sources where a fashion buyer can collect trend information.
• What are the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that a buyer’s success is measured by?
• If you have found a new brand or label that you would like to purchase for the store, but you are unsure of whether it will sell or not. What do you do?
• An item isn’t selling, and you have a lot of stock of that item.  What can you do to help it sell?
• The number of customers coming into the store is low and as a result, you are finding it hard to meet sales budgets. What actions can you suggest the company take to help get customers in the store and help increase sales.

 

Retail Arithmetic Fashion Buyer Interview Questions

Retail Terminology: explain the meaning or the definition of the below terminology:

1. 1. stock turn
   2. OTB
   3. Gross margin
   4. Pack Break
   5. Mark-up
   6. MOQ

The above fashion buyer interview questions are aimed at making sure you know the key terms used on the job as a fashion buyer, and you know how they relate to buying stock for the store.

 

What You Should Ask In a Fashion Buying Interview

• What is a typical day like?
• Is there an opportunity for growth here?
• Who will I be working alongside with?
• Who are you looking for to fill this position?
• How do you measure success?

Advice on Fashion Buying Job Interviews- From a Fashion Buyer

Wayup recently asked Fashion Buyer Chrissy Allen, a buyer at MILLY,  her top tips for nailing a fashion buyer interview.

According to Chrissy, here are some of the top 5 questions you’re likely to encounter in your interview and what you need to consider to answer them in the most impressive way.

1. Why do you love fashion?

This is one of the first questions you’ll come across in your interview and one that you should definitely be prepared to answer. Why do hiring managers ask this? “We want to make sure that you don’t just love shopping. We want to hear your passion,” Chrissy explains. In order to impress the interviewer, talk about what draws you to fashion and what you’d like to accomplish while working in the field.

Pro Tip: Get creative! Instead of saying something like, “Because I like to experiment and try new things,” focus on some of the other key attributes of fashion such as the fact that working in fashion requires you to be analytical and understand market trends.

2. Who are our main competitors?

When interviewers ask this question it’s because they “want to know that you’ve done your research,” Chrissy says. In fact, being able to talk about a brand’s competitors is a great way to show that you know both the industry and the brand.

Pro Tip: When answering this question, be sure to pick competitors that are in the same space as the brand you’re interviewing with. For example, if you were interviewing at MILLY — a brand known for being contemporary, young and feminine — you should name competitors that share those characteristics and are targeting the same customer base. Since department stores tend to group similar brands together, a great way of researching competitors is to visit a department store and see what other clothing brands are grouped together with MILLY.

3. What three adjectives would you use to describe our company?

This is a fun question and one that gives you a chance to show that you understand the brand and can represent it well to others. “Whether you say something like fun or girly or super modern, we want to know that you know our brand,” Chrissy explains. In order to ensure that you come up with a great answer, spend some time on the company’s website and social channels and take notes on the key phrases the brand uses to describe itself. Then make a list of 3-5 relevant adjectives so that you have a selection of descriptors to choose from during the interview.

4. How was your experience in our store?

One of the key parts of being a fashion buyer is understanding the customer experience and being able to suggest changes that will help the brand improve. The main things interviewers like Chrissy want to know when they ask this question is, “Do you know who our customer is and have you been to our stores?”

To nail this answer, we recommend visiting at least one (but preferably two) of the company’s stores and taking note of things like layout, customer service and window displays. In your interview, you can talk about how these factors shaped your experience, making sure to end on a positive note.

Pro Tip: To really get a sense of the customer experience, be sure to talk to the sales representatives so that you can highlight things you liked (or didn’t like) about the interaction.

5. Tell me about a time that you negotiated.

“There’s a lot of negotiation in the fashion world and we want to know that you’re comfortable with that” Chrissy says. This includes negotiating payment terms and rates with distributors and designers and being able to make deals that are beneficial to the company. To answer this question effectively, focus on a previous experience where you negotiated a deal or a contract and be sure to explain both your thought process and the outcome.

Being a fashion buyer is a fantastic opportunity to learn about the retail industry while building your skillset. The key to landing a job as a buyer, especially at a great company like MILLY, is to do your research and show that you know the brand and its customers. This will help you stand out to employers and be at the top of their minds when they’re ready to make an offer.

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