Aylin Sarac

About

Fashion retail leader/buyer who launched womenswear at Notre by blending high-recognition brands with emerging designers to drive discovery, strong margins, and improved retention. Negotiated a $40K vendor-funded in-store installation with consignment runway product, generating $20K+ in event sales and sustained social-driven traffic. Recently stepped in as Retail Director at Manifest, owning the full retail revenue stream across two stores plus e-comm and building SOPs/merch strategy for an 11,000 sq ft new location.

Experience

Education

Key Strengths

• Launched womenswear category end-to-end at Notre; drove strong retention and healthy margins via discovery merchandising
• Data-driven buying: monitors performance by brand/style/season; uses sell-through and margin as primary success indicators
• Agile OTB management (committed/protected/opportunity) with weekly forecasting and chase/drop/swap decisions
• Trend-responsive inventory risk mitigation (edited sneaker order; swapped into trending Mary Jane style to improve revenue/margin and reduce aged inventory)
• Negotiated and executed vendor-funded in-store installation with consignment runway product; sold $20K+ in one night and boosted traffic/engagement via social content
• Improved speed-to-market by aligning internal teams/AP and pre-prioritizing high-urgency items for shipping/payment
• Built retail merchandising strategy and SOPs from scratch as acting Retail Director for a major store opening (11,000 sq ft) across multi-channel retail
• Developed talent: coached e-comm stylist into stronger retail math/Excel and market appointment/vendor negotiation capability