We’re looking for a motivated and commercially minded Junior Buyer to join our Generics Purchasing team on an initial 12-month maternity cover contract. This is an excellent opportunity for someone looking to develop their buying career within the pharmaceutical industry, gaining exposure to supplier management, commercial negotiations and stock management in a fast-paced environment.
Working with a portfolio of generic pharmaceutical suppliers, you’ll help ensure excellent product availability while supporting the delivery of competitive pricing and strong commercial performance. You’ll build positive supplier relationships, monitor stock levels, place purchase orders and work closely with internal teams to identify slow sales, manage slow-moving stock and optimise product performance.
This role may suit someone with previous experience in a purchasing/supply chain/buying team or someone who has recently graduated university and looking for their first industry role. If you’re organised, analytical and enjoy building relationships while making commercially driven decisions, this role offers the opportunity to develop your purchasing experience within a collaborative and supportive team.
Main responsibilities
- Meet with suppliers daily to negotiate pricing and place purchase orders.
- Maintain excellent stock availability across your assigned supplier portfolio.
- Use Power BI to identify potential stock shortages and proactively place orders.
- Manage stock replenishment and inter-depot transfers.
- Provide day-to-day administrative support to the Buying team.
- Work closely with overseas teams to ensure outstanding orders are delivered on time, preventing stock shortages and maintaining reserve stock.
- Liaise with suppliers and internal teams to manage out-of-stock products, including short and long-term manufacturing issues.
- Resolve delivery and product issues by working with Goods Inwards and suppliers.
- Check supplier invoices to ensure pricing accuracy.
- Set up new product lines and maintain product listings.
- Monitor supplier spend against rebate agreements to support commercial performance.
- Work with the Sales team to identify slow-moving stock and implement pricing strategies to improve sales and minimise excess inventory.
The ideal candidate
- Degree educated OR previous experience in a purchasing/supply chain/buying role
- Strong attention to detail with a high level of accuracy.
- Confident using Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, Outlook and Word.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
- Excellent communication skills with the confidence to build relationships at all levels.
- Professional and confident telephone manner.
- A collaborative team player who works effectively to achieve shared objectives.
About the company
With the purpose of improving the lives of our patients and customers, Bestway Healthcare supports communities across the United Kingdom and Ireland through an extensive network of community pharmacies and pharmaceutical wholesale depots.
Our wholesale business unit operates two pharmaceutical wholesale brands, Lexon and Bestway Medhub which combined support over 5,000 independent community pharmacy contractors, processing over 100m packs of medication every year making us the 4th largest pharmaceutical wholesaler in the United Kingdom. Our wholesale business unit also operates a leading appliance wholesaler, Wardle’s, a generic supplier Key Pharmaceuticals. We operate from 3 distribution centres with a fleet of vans delivering to independent pharmacies & directly to the most vulnerable patients every day.
