Buying Assistant Stationery & Hobby

Fulltime, 38 hours per week

Are you commercially minded and excited about influencing which stationery and hobby products millions of customers use every day? Join our buying team as a Buying Assistant for our Stationery & Hobby category and discover how much impact you’ll have on Action’s assortment – from supporting strategic buying decisions to choosing the next must have notebook, colouring set, or creative DIY product.

These are your daily actions

Our buyers are responsible for sourcing the most appealing stationery and hobby items for our stores, but as a Buying Assistant in the Stationery & Hobby category, you’ll have real decision making power that goes far beyond a traditional support role.

You’ll actively help shape what appears in Action’s stationery and hobby aisles across Europe.

Your influence ranges from supporting buyers with key buying decisions to having your own creative input on product specifications. Yes, you’ll help coordinate the buying process from A to Z, but you’ll also be the one deciding which colours a craft paper range should include.

You’ll analyse emerging trends in stationery and hobby, coordinate with Supply Chain for optimal delivery schedules, and collaborate closely with Marketing and Promotion to ensure your selected products get the visibility they deserve. While there are administrative tasks to keep everything organised, most of your time will be spent making commercial decisions that influence what millions of customers discover in our stores.

This becomes your team – Let us tell you about Buying in Action!

As part of the Stationery & Hobby team, you’ll help introduce more than 150 new products every week across all categories. Within Stationery & Hobby specifically, you’ll have direct influence on an assortment of hundreds of items – from notebooks, pens, markers, and school supplies to creative hobby products such as craft kits, paint sets, stickers, and seasonal DIY activities.

Your decisions matter: whether it’s selecting the colour palette for a back to school collection, choosing materials for creative hobby items, or determining which craft trends best fit our customers’ needs, you’ll have genuine decision making power.

Together with your team, you’ll ensure the assortment remains surprising, practical, affordable, and well balanced. Entrepreneurship and customer focus are central to everything we do, and in this role, your commercial judgement directly shapes what customers find in our stores.

This is you

You love organising and making sure everything runs smoothly, but you’re also energised by having real commercial decision making responsibility. You thrive in a dynamic environment where you quickly switch between supporting strategic buying decisions and making your own product choices – whether that’s selecting colours, materials, formats, or functionalities.

You have strong organisational and communication skills, but above all, you have a sharp commercial eye for stationery and hobby products that resonate with customers. You notice details – like which creative trends are gaining popularity, which school supplies customers rely on year after year, or which hobby products inspire seasonal creativity – and you’re eager to turn those insights into product decisions.

We also require

• Completed HBO degree in a commercial field
• Experience in a commercial environment (retail, buying, or product development preferred)
• Knowledge of systems such as Excel
• Good command of Dutch and English, both spoken and written
• Affinity with stationery, hobby, and creative consumer products

What we offer

Surprisingly much!

From our home base in the Netherlands, your stationery and hobby product decisions will impact millions of customers across Europe. We currently operate more than 3,000 stores in 15 countries — with big growth ambitions.

Your development means gaining even more decision making responsibility. Leading innovation projects, building supplier relationships, or progressing into senior buying roles: growth opportunities at Action are extensive. All of this happens within a culture guided by our core values: discipline, respect, teamwork, customer focus, cost consciousness, and simplicity.

Did you know that with us you can also count on

• A market conform salary based on a 38 hour workweek
• 24 vacation days, with the option to purchase 5 extra
• Flexible working hours, aligned with your team and manager
• 15% employee discount on your Action purchases (yes — also on stationery and hobby products you helped choose!)
• A solid pension scheme, collective health insurance, and travel allowance

How we contribute to society

Behind the scenes, we actively work to create positive impact on society and the environment. We support children through SOS Children’s Villages, work with colleagues from over 120 nationalities, and continuously improve how responsibly we source materials.

Within Stationery & Hobby, you’ll contribute to our sustainability ambitions by selecting products made from recycled or responsibly sourced materials, reusable stationery items, and creative products designed for long term use.

Interested?

We are proud to be an inclusive employer and warmly invite everyone who recognises themselves in this vacancy to apply. Ready to make an impact on what millions of customers write with, create, and craft every day?
Take action and apply now!