Following a period of expansion where we have grown from one to seven centres, Yorkshire Garden Centres are seeking to continue to strengthen the senior team with the recruitment of its first full time Buying Director. To date, our highly experienced Commercial Director has led both the buying and retail teams, they will now focus on the retail side of our business with the Buying Director benefiting from their input, support and experience.
The Buying Director will report to the Managing Director and be a part of the Executive team.
The Yorkshire Garden Centre Group:
Yorkshire Garden Centres (“YGC”) is the trading name of two principal businesses:
- TGC (2015) Ltd, the operator of four garden centres, being Tong, Tingley, Otley and Bingley. TGC (2015) is wholly owned by YGC Group.
- YGC Partners Ltd, the operator of garden centres at York and Scarborough and Pennine nr Huddersfield. YGC Partners is a joint venture between the shareholders of YGC Group Ltd and a third-party investor.
The seven sites are a mixture of freehold and leasehold, all of which been acquired or built (in the case of Tingley) over the last 10 years. All sites are consistently branded and are run by the Head Office team, based at Tong Garden Centre.
The YGC portfolio is a mixture of destination and community-based garden centres, with a strong focus on high quality restaurant and children’s play to complement its core retail offerings in gardening, leisure, giftware and food.
Since the formation of the business, we have grown from £3m to a current year turnover of c.£38m and EBITDA of c.£3.2m, our ambition is to further this growth in the coming years.
The Role
We’re looking for a commercially driven Buying Director to lead our buying team across the YGC group. This senior role will take ownership of our overall product and sourcing strategy, ensuring we deliver outstanding ranges, profitability, and customer value across all sites.
You’ll lead a talented team of buyers to deliver our annual sales, margin, and stock targets, overseeing all areas of product selection, supplier relationships, and seasonal trading. From garden furniture to Christmas, you’ll shape the buying calendar and ensure we make the most of every commercial opportunity.
As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team, you’ll work closely with the Retail and Finance Directors to align buying, stock, and space planning decisions, ensuring we continue to grow both profitably and sustainably. You will report directly into the Managing Director and lead a buying team who are predominately based at Tong.
Your role will include the following areas:
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead and manage the buying team to deliver annual sales, margin, and stock targets across all categories and sites.
- Analyse business performance to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, using insights to inform commercial decisions.
- Develop and implement a sourcing strategy with the team to maximise sales and margin growth opportunities.
- Work closely with the Retail Director to plan and allocate store space and ranges, ensuring commercial potential is fully realised.
- Oversee major seasonal buying periods including Christmas and Garden Furniture, ensuring timely and profitable execution.
- Ensure the business maintains a strong professional reputation with suppliers through ethical, transparent, and consistent dealings across the team.
- Lead YGC’s participation in the Tillington Buying Group, managing the group agenda, opportunities, and voucher programmes (including our Green Card loyalty scheme and vouchers).
- Work with the Buying team to meet agreed stock targets and ensure replenishment supports trading needs, whilst maximizing working capital efficiencies, where possible.
- Collaborate with the Finance Director to monitor and report on risks, opportunities and cashflow, ensuring informed business decisions.
- Actively participate in weekly Exec meetings, weekly Buying Team meetings, and monthly Board meetings/calls to align activity and share insight.
- Champion team development, ensuring the buying team continuously enhances its skills, knowledge, and commercial awareness.
- Maintain awareness of competitor activity and peer performance within the Tillington Group to inform future strategies and best practice.
Location of role:
Whilst the role will largely be based at the Head Office in Tong, there will be opportunities to work from home and to work from other sites in the YGC Group. There will be travelling required, both nationally (once a month) and internationally (around 6 times a year)
Rewards and Benefits:
- Permanent, full-time role
- Competitive salary
- Bonus opportunity
- Private health care
- Salary sacrifice electric car scheme
- Extensive in store discounts
The Successful Applicant:
The ideal candidate will have a strong trading background developed within an independent or multiple retail business. We are seeking a candidate who can demonstrate the successful implementation of sound trading strategies that have led to profitable sales growth.
Category experience is desirable but not essential, we operate across a wide variety of indoor and outdoor categories ranging from food and giftware, to plants and outdoor furniture.
You will have strong commercial acumen and attention to detail, with the ability to analyse data to determine the opportunities in all our categories. Ideally, you will have built sales and margin budgets with the ability to identify risks and opportunities.
You will have strong IT skills to manage the buying function efficiently. You will demonstrate excellent communication skills to ensure your strategies are both understood and soundly implemented.
Our culture is very collaborative, we are seeking a real team player who can work with and get the best from those around them. We are ambitious and seek an individual who shares this ambition. We are entrepreneurial and are constantly seeking ways to improve our offer, to this extent you will welcome innovation and challenge.
You will have the ability to manage, develop and mentor a team of buyers and buying assistants. We are seeking someone who can enhance the skills of the whole team to strengthen our capability across the whole function.
