From Buyer to Buying & Merchandising Recruiter: Nadine’s Story
Working in a buying office teaches you a lot that never appears on a job description.
How to build strong relationships with suppliers. How to make decisions when something isn’t selling as expected. How closely buyers, merchandisers and designers need to work together. And how quickly plans can change when a product, delivery or supplier doesn’t quite go to plan.
Nadine Tipping knows that world because she worked in it.
She started her career as an Assistant Buyer on ladieswear at Matalan before moving to Shop Direct, where she worked on sportswear across product development and branded buying. She then became a Junior Buyer at Makro.
In 2003, Nadine moved into recruitment.
She’s spent the 23 years since recruiting buyers and merchandisers, from Junior through to Director level, across fashion, home and wider retail and consumer brands. In February 2026, she joined Zachary Daniels as a Business Manager.
So when a Buying Director briefs her on the person they need, or an Assistant Buyer talks to her about their next step, there’s a lot they don’t have to explain.
She knows the jobs. And after more than two decades recruiting into the market, she knows the market too.
Some of Nadine’s best examples of what buying is really like would never make it onto a job description.
At Shop Direct, she spent her days working with sportswear brands, going to appointments and making product selections. She got to know the suppliers well, partly, she suspects, for a reason no job spec would mention:
I think the brands liked me because they thought I could influence the buyer as well, so they were nice to me!
Shop Direct was mail order at the time, which taught her a very different discipline to the one buyers work with today. Once a catalogue was printed, you couldn’t change it. There was no updating a product page or quickly replacing something online.
If you’ve worked in buying or merchandising, you’ll have your own version of those stories.
They’re the reason words on a job description like “commercial”, “analytical”, “resilient” and “strong supplier relationships” mean a little more when you’ve actually lived them.
She always wanted the recruiter’s job
Nadine enjoyed buying, but there was another job she kept noticing.
Every time I met a recruitment consultant, I remember thinking, ‘I want to do your job.’
When the opportunity eventually came along, she took it.
Within a couple of weeks, she’d made her first placement and quickly saw an opportunity to build a Buying & Merchandising desk in the North, recruiting into businesses and roles she already understood.
Obviously, I’d worked there. I knew all the businesses.
She’s been recruiting buyers and merchandisers ever since.
As Nadine puts it:
Having been a buyer made me a better recruiter because I know the world that I’m recruiting for.
That’s true whether she’s talking to an Assistant Buyer frustrated about progression or a Merchandising Director about the person they actually need, rather than simply the job title on the brief.
If you’re a Buyer or Merchandiser thinking about your next move
Nadine has been where a lot of her candidates are now.
I know what it’s like being an Assistant Buyer and wanting to get to that next step as a Junior Buyer. It’s like a funnel. There are only so many jobs and there are fewer opportunities as you progress. I understand how frustrating that can be.
She felt it herself. She loved her time at Shop Direct, but there wasn’t the progression she wanted.
And she doesn’t think that frustration has changed all that much.
The frustrations for buyers and merchandisers probably aren’t that different now from when I was doing it.
What has changed is where that experience can take you.
Nadine has seen merchandisers move into ecommerce merchandising, business analyst and other analytical roles, while buyers have moved into product development and account management.
Years ago, you were more likely to stay in one lane.
That’s why Nadine’s conversations with candidates aren’t just about finding the next job with a slightly better title or salary.
What are you actually looking for?
What’s frustrating you where you are?
Where do you want your career to go?
And what does the right next move need to give you?
That support doesn’t disappear as you become more senior either.
Early in her recruitment career, Nadine was surprised by how much Heads of Department and Directors still relied on her when they were making a move.
I used to think, ‘But you’re the expert.’ Now I understand it. Changing jobs is a big deal. You can assume that because somebody is very senior they’ll be absolutely fine on their own. Actually, they still need all of that. We’re all human.
If you’re recruiting a Buyer or Merchandiser
A job title on a CV doesn’t always tell you what someone has actually been doing.
Nadine’s clearest example is branded buying.
As the buyer, you’ll often end up doing more of the merchandising side than you would in product development, because you’ve got more time. You end up doing more of the analytical work. That might not be written on the job spec, but you know that somebody who has done a branded buying role will probably have a good head for figures.
It’s the kind of detail that can completely change how you assess someone’s experience.
Having worked alongside merchandisers every day, Nadine also understands what the job actually involves and the questions worth asking.
Six months into recruitment, she took over a Merchandiser desk.
I would have been like a fish out of water if I’d never done it before.
Twenty-three years of recruiting in the space has added another layer to that understanding.
She knows where skills are transferable. She knows where job titles can be misleading. And she knows which parts of the market are likely to be harder to recruit.
In her experience, one challenge has remained particularly consistent:
Good Assistant Merchandisers are always in demand. There have always been more buying candidates than there are buying jobs, and fewer merchandising candidates for a similar number of jobs.
So before Nadine starts searching for your next Buyer or Merchandiser, there are five things she’ll want to understand:
- What level of experience does the role really need, regardless of the title?
- What kind of person thrives in your team, and how much change will they be dealing with?
- How much analytical and merchandising responsibility actually sits with the buyer in your business?
- Why would a strong candidate at this stage of their career want to join you?
- If it’s a merchandising role, how quickly can you move when the right person comes along?
The answers change who you should be looking for.
And after 23 years in the market, Nadine isn’t only thinking about who might be available today.
For her, real specialism means:
Knowing not just who is recruiting now, but who is likely to be recruiting in the future, because you can see the picture within businesses.
That kind of market knowledge takes time to build.
She changed careers. She didn’t leave the industry.
Moving into recruitment meant learning a completely new job.
Nadine still remembers her first day, walking into an office full of people wearing headsets and wondering what she’d walked into.
But she wasn’t starting from zero.
Negotiating. Building relationships. Having difficult conversations. Understanding different personalities. Keeping up with the market and knowing what competitors were doing.
She’d already spent years learning those things in buying.
If you love the industry and you love what you do, you’re not leaving the industry at all. You’re just doing a slightly different job within it.
Twenty-three years later, she’s still in the same world.
She just sees it from both sides now.
Why does industry experience matter in Buying & Merchandising recruitment?
Because understanding the job changes the conversation.
When a client briefs Nadine on a Buyer or Merchandiser role, she already understands how the functions work together, where responsibilities can overlap and why the same job title can mean something completely different from one business to another.
She understands the career paths too. Where people tend to move, where the candidate shortages are, which skills can transfer and why someone who looks right on paper might not actually be right for the role.
And when she’s talking to candidates, they don’t have to spend half the conversation explaining what they do.
That first-hand experience, combined with 23 years recruiting in Buying & Merchandising, means Nadine can get underneath a brief quickly, ask better questions and understand what both sides of the conversation are really looking for.
It’s one of the reasons we value industry experience so highly across our Buying & Merchandising team.
We know the market because we recruit in it every day. And many of our team understand the jobs because they’ve done them too.
We know Buying & Merchandising because we’ve worked in it and recruited in it
Nadine’s story is her own, but she’s not the only person at ZD who brings first-hand industry experience to the job they now recruit for.
Across our Buying & Merchandising team, we have people who’ve worked within the functions and industries they now recruit into.
That matters.
It means when you’re briefing us on a role, we’re not starting with a job title and a list of responsibilities. We understand the context around it, the market you’re hiring into and the differences that can make someone right for one business and completely wrong for another.
And when candidates talk to us about their careers, there’s a good chance they’re speaking to someone who understands where they’re coming from.
For Nadine, the buying experience she built at the start of her career hasn’t disappeared.
She’s spent the 23 years since adding to it.
Looking for your next Buying & Merchandising hire?
Whether you’re recruiting an Assistant Buyer, Buyer, Merchandiser or building out a senior Buying & Merchandising team, Nadine and our wider Buying & Merchandising team would be happy to help.
Many of the team have worked in the areas they now recruit into, so you’ll be speaking to people who understand the roles, the market and what good looks like.
And if you’re thinking about your own next move, we can help with that too.
Check out our Buying & Merchandising page
Recruit with our Buying & Merchandising team
FAQ
Why use a specialist Buying & Merchandising recruitment agency?
Buying and Merchandising roles can vary significantly between businesses, even when the job titles look the same.
A specialist recruiter understands those differences, the career paths within the functions, where skills are transferable and what candidates are likely to be looking for at different stages of their careers.
At Zachary Daniels, that specialism is strengthened by having people in our Buying & Merchandising team who have worked within the functions they now recruit for.
It means we can get underneath a brief quickly, ask the right questions and look beyond job titles to understand the experience a role actually needs.
What are the benefits of using a recruiter who has worked in Buying or Merchandising?
First-hand experience gives a recruiter context that can be difficult to learn from a job description alone.
They understand how Buying and Merchandising teams work together, the pressures people face in the roles, how responsibilities differ between businesses and why two candidates with the same job title may have very different experience.
For clients, that can mean a better brief, a more informed search and candidates who are assessed on what they’ve actually done rather than simply what appears on their CV.
For candidates, it means speaking to someone who understands their experience, career options and what they may want from their next move.
What should you look for when recruiting a Buyer?
Look beyond the job title.
The product area, type of buying, level of supplier responsibility, commercial and analytical exposure and relationship with Merchandising can all affect the experience someone brings.
For example, Nadine has found that branded buyers can have more exposure to analytical and merchandising responsibilities than their job title alone might suggest.
The best starting point is being clear about what the person actually needs to deliver in your business and then assessing candidates against that, rather than simply looking for an identical job title.
Why can Merchandisers be difficult to recruit?
Strong Merchandisers, particularly at Assistant Merchandiser level, can be in high demand.
In Nadine’s experience, there have historically been fewer merchandising candidates than buying candidates for a similar number of opportunities. Their analytical skills can also open up career paths beyond traditional Merchandising, including ecommerce merchandising and other analytical roles.
That makes understanding the available candidate market, moving quickly and being clear about why someone should join your business particularly important.
What roles does a Buying & Merchandising recruitment agency recruit?
Zachary Daniels recruits across Buying and Merchandising from junior appointments through to leadership and Director-level roles.
This includes Assistant Buyers, Buyers, Senior Buyers, Assistant Merchandisers, Merchandisers, Senior Merchandisers, Heads of Buying, Heads of Merchandising, Buying Directors and Merchandising Directors, alongside related Buying & Merchandising appointments.
How do I choose a Buying & Merchandising recruitment agency?
Look for genuine specialism rather than simply a recruiter that lists Buying & Merchandising among the areas it covers.
That means understanding the roles, knowing the candidate market, having established relationships within the sector and being able to advise on more than salary and job title.
At Zachary Daniels, our Buying & Merchandising team combines years of specialist recruitment experience with first-hand experience of working within the functions we recruit for.
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