20 Minutes in the life of a TjMaxx buyer

Yesterday I was invited to a Be the Buyer event at TJMaxx in New York City.
It was at 9 am, which meant getting up before sunrise to make the trip from Connecticut, but it was a worthwhile trip.

Over breakfast in the store (while it was still open for regular customers) Alison Deyette went over how the buyers for TJMaxx and Marshalls work differently than buyers for all other stores.

Every TJX buyer focuses on only one certain line, like just women's fashion, or shoes, or bedding and they travel 40 times a year all over the world to find the best deals on the things trending at that moment. When the TJX buyers find something they want for the stores, that item is on the shelf in two weeks; every thing in the stores is very current. And every store gets in a shipment of 10,000 new items each week. Which means I am completely justified when I want to go every week...

A lot of people I know seem to think that all the merchandise in TJMaxx is defective or past season, which is not true - TJMaxx is just able to negotiate with designers for all of their merchandise that the department stores didn't buy, and they can even get unique pieces, like certain styles done in different prints or colors. Since they don't have to promote the designers, they can keep the costs lower.

As for past season merchandise, it is there, but the tags are labeled as such, and those items are hardly out of style - in fact, I found a pair of my Steve Madden Inka boots there! Yes, they are last year's, but the color and style is far from out of fashion.

Then everyone was given a buyer challenge, we were paired off and given a department to shop in and we had to come up with five items that fit into the TJMaxx buyers code: Fashion, Quality, Brand, Price.

I was partnered with Alex and we hit the shoe isles. I think I took this challenge far to seriously, scrutinizing every pair of shoes, and I tried to come up with only shoes that I would reasonably buy (sorry $300 pair of YSL pumps, you are still over my budget even at 20%-60% off).

After shopping, all the participants did a show and tell, which we all had a lot of fun with, and you could really see how many wonderful designers are there, and just how substantial the TJMaxx discounts were.

The rest of the day was of course spent drinking coffee, eating and shopping. Thanks so much to TJMaxx for having me!

The Rundown

Leopard Top Anne Klein via TJMaxx - Skirt Talbots - Sandals Onex - Station Bag Coach Thrifted - Belt TJMaxx - Ring TJMaxx - Earrings TJMaxx - Bracelets The Cavernous Jewelry Box

Alex's Rundown

Jacket T by Alexander Wang - Dress Betsey Johnson Vintage - Belt Forever 21 - Boots Target