Trading

The Trading scheme has now closed for applications.

About the area

The Trading floor at ASDA House in Leeds is where our team of Buyers select the products that we sell in our stores: getting the right products to our customers at the right time, at the right price and in the right quantities is the cornerstone of our business. With over 60,000 different products carried by ASDA it's a complex area of the business and covers an array of activities: selecting products and suppliers; looking at procurement chanels; determining product placement; merchandising; pricing; margin delivery; cost negotiation; profitability analysis.

We are planning to recruit ten Trading graduates to be coached and trained to be industry leading Buyers. You will be quickly intergrated into the Trading Team and given the necessary in house and external training to fully exploit your potential and be a major contributor to your department's performance.

About your development

After an initial week at ASDA House where you will get a fast track introduction to our company and its senior managers, you will then spend the next ten weeks working in one of our top flight stores where you will get a full understanding of how a superstore operates. You then move back to ASDA House and onto the Trading Floor as a Trading Assistant where you will be working as part of the team in one of our key categories - getting involved in a mixture of work that will help you develop your skills, and gain a solid understanding of how this part of the business functions.

After another 24 weeks you will then be given part of your department's product range to buy under the guidance of your Buyer - following a further 24 weeks, and again subject to satisfactory performance, you will appointed the Buyer of your own department where you will develop and hone your newly acquired skills. Based on a great performance you will then have the opportunity to be promoted and move to a new bigger department as a fully qualified Buyer.

Throughout your two and a half years' graduate training you be given a comprehensive programme of retail skills coaching, including product ranging, marketing, packaging, merchandising,importing, seasonal buying, selling more, pricing, negotiating and leadership techniques. The aim is for you to progress from Trading Assistant to buyer during your training period of two and a half years and over a total of five years to become a top flight Senior Buyer.

About you

You need to have a real mix of heart and head, have the competitive spirit of a true Trader, be bright enough to deal with the analytical aspects of the business, with the instinctive nature to judge the product needs of your customers and anticipate trends. You will need to forget your own personal opinions on products and make decisions based on customer needs and factual data. We're open to degree disciplines, although something with a commercial aspect will be to your advantage.

Why join in?

To drive competitive advantage, ASDA must sell products more cheaply at a high quality. You'll be the one making decisions to make that difference.

The Trading scheme is based at ASDA House in Leeds.