Jobs / Management and business operations / 13-1022.00
Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
Buy merchandise or commodities, other than farm products, for resale to consumers at the wholesale or retail level, including both durable and nondurable goods. Analyze past buying trends, sales records, price, and quality of merchandise to determine value and yield. Select, order, and authorize payment for merchandise according to contractual agreements. May conduct meetings with sales personnel and introduce new products. May negotiate contracts. Includes assistant wholesale and retail buyers of nonfarm products.
- US jobs
- Not reported by BLS
- Job family
- Management and business operations
Can agents do the work of wholesale and retail buyers, except farm products?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Management and business operations:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. On TheAgentCompany, which gives agents workplace tasks inside a simulated software company, the best agent resolves 42.9% of tasks (a November 2025 result). No task-level benchmark in our collection maps directly to management or business operations.
- Project levelPartialMixed. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons, and the best agent passes 73.5% of APEX-Agents tasks on the first try. Running a business is weaker: on Vending-Bench 2 the best model ends a simulated year with $15,515, about a quarter of Andon Labs' estimate for a good strategy.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in management and business operations, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- 42.9%TTE-MatrixAgent + DeepSeek-V3.2 · 10 Nov 2025Emerging
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Negotiate prices, discount terms, or transportation arrangements with suppliers.
- Inspect merchandise or products to determine quality, value, or yield.
- Recommend mark-up rates, mark-down rates, or merchandise selling prices.
- Obtain information about customer needs or preferences by conferring with sales or purchasing personnel.
- Buy merchandise or commodities for resale to wholesale or retail consumers.
- Collaborate with vendors to obtain or develop desired products.
- Authorize payment of invoices or return of merchandise.
- Consult with store or merchandise managers about budgets or goods to be purchased.
- Monitor and analyze sales records, trends, or economic conditions to anticipate consumer buying patterns, company sales, and needed inventory.
- Examine, select, order, or purchase merchandise consistent with quality, quantity, specification requirements, or other factors, such as environmental soundness.
- Provide clerks with information to print on price tags, such as price, mark-ups or mark-downs, manufacturer number, season code, or style number.
- Analyze environmental aspects of competing merchandise when making buying decisions.
Other job titles for this occupation (29)
Bakery Buyer · Buyer · Deli Buyer · Frozen Food Buyer · Gourmet Food Buyer · Grocery Buyer · Purchaser · Retail Buyer · Wine Buyer · Buying Professional · Commodity Buyer · Exporter · Fashion Buyer · Fur Buyer · Gold Buyer · Merchandise Buyer · Merchandise Planner · Merchant · Procurement Buyer · Purchasing Buyer · Purchasing Specialist · Purveyor · Resale Merchandise Purchasing Agent · Resident Buyer · Sustainability Purchasing Agent · Technical Buyer · Tie Buyer · Wholesale and Retail Merchant · Wholesale Buyer