Associate Buyer - Deli
Emeryville, CA · HybridFull-time$70–75K/yrPosted todayStill listed today
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At a glance
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Job overview
The Associate Buyer on Grocery Outlet’s Deli team works alongside a buyer, supporting their categories and key accounts while managing categories independently. The role focuses on purchasing, supplier relationships, category performance, purchase-order flow, forecasting, and negotiating costs. It reports to a Buyer and follows a hybrid schedule in the Emeryville office, with travel about 10% of the time.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Benefits
Full job description
About the Team: Our Purchasing team’s mission is to provide bargain-minded customers with the deepest discounts on quality and branded products. In many ways our team is the heart of the organization- building and maintaining vendor relationships and providing solutions for our supplier partners and independent operators. Our buyers are empowered with speed, flexibility, and freedom while their passion and creativity embody the art of closeout buying. Successful members of our team are motivated to exceed annual comp sales, thrive in a collaborative environment, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and be motivated by relationship building.
About the role: As an Associate Buyer on the Deli team, you will work alongside a buyer to continue to learn and develop your buying/negotiating skills. During this time, your focus will be on assisting the buyer you are teamed up with on all of their categories and key accounts, as well as taking ownership of managing your own categories. The Associate Buyer will report to a Buyer on the Deli Team.
Responsibilities Include:
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Support Buyers on day-to-day functions of the department
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Develop new relationships as well as foster existing relationships to drive the success of your categories
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Responsible for category management for multiple classes and sub-classes
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Monitor future purchase orders and manage weekly receipt flow into the 4 different distribution centers, to insure timely arrival of orders
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Monitor receipts for fulfilment accuracy
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Work closely with the inventory planning team to support buyer forecasting and managing of imports
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Demonstrate ability to successfully sell Grocery Outlet to vendors and foster relationships with our existing supplier base
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Identify category opportunities based on trends within and outside of GOI to help reach and exceed sales and margin plans
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Navigate key metrics by category and SKU to analyze assortment and potential gaps
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Negotiate costs that allow to set retail prices that maximize value to the customer while considering the impact in margin.
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Ensure that communication (written/verbal) is complete and thorough with vendor and internal partners
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Establishes and maintains a reputation of credibility and responsiveness; promptly returns vendor and store phone calls, ensures timely follow-up on issues within 24 hours
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Write articles addressed to store managers and operators communicating organic trends, merchandising recommendations and general knowledge of the organic category
The Pay:
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Base Salary Range: $70,000 - 75,000
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Annual Bonus Program
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Equity
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401(k) Profit Sharing
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Medical, Dental, Vision & More!
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Final compensation will be determined based upon experience and skills and may vary based on location
About you:
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Degree and 2+ years of purchasing experience or 4 to 6 years of purchasing experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience
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Experience negotiating costs and terms with suppliers
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Ability to prioritize, multitask and manage multiple projects with broad workload to meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment
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Strong written & verbal communication skills
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Excellent interpersonal and negotiation skills
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Proven team player, self-motivated, independent thinker
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Highly analytical, resourceful, and problem-solving mentality
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Proficient in the use of Excel, Microsoft Word and Outlook
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Travel 10% of the time
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Able to work a hybrid schedule in our Emeryville, Ca office
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How this job compares
Set against the 1,235 open Buyer jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 7, 2026.
- Pay
- This posting$70–75K/yr
- California median$89–126K/yr123 salary ranges
- US median$75–101K/yr524 salary ranges
This range's midpoint, $73K, is 31% below the California median midpoint ($104K) — in the lowest quarter of Buyer salary ranges in California.
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 156 open Buyer jobs in California and 1,235 across the US. 2% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Hiring the most in California
- Anduril32 open
- General Atomics6 open
- Vast4 open
- Experience
- This posting asks for at least 2 years of experience; Buyer postings that state a minimum ask for 3 years at the median (893 postings).
- Education
- 356 of the 1,235 open Buyer jobs (29%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 7, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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