Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products

Most exposed tasks

Highest structured exposure values in this role’s task mix — the work AI systems can already do most of.

• Provide clerks with information to print on price tags, such as price, mark-ups or mark-downs, manufacturer number, season code, or style number.87
• Authorize payment of invoices or return of merchandise.77
• Monitor and analyze sales records, trends, or economic conditions to anticipate consumer buying patterns, company sales, and needed inventory.77

Augmentable tasks

Work where AI assists rather than replaces — the productivity frontier of this role.

• Collaborate with vendors to obtain or develop desired products.59
• Determine which products should be featured in advertising, the advertising medium to be used, or when the ads should be run.58
• Buy merchandise or commodities for resale to wholesale or retail consumers.57

Most durable tasks

Lowest exposure — typically judgment, relationships, physical presence, or accountability. This is the human moat.

The current data release does not distinguish durable tasks for this role.

Task exposure values and classifications come from the versioned data release — they are structured data, not model output. Bars show exposure contribution relative to this role’s task mix.

What this means

A score of 63 puts Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products in the most-exposed quarter of analyzed occupations. In practice, exposure this high is about the mix: 11 of 20 analyzed tasks lean automatable, 9 augmentable, and 0 durable. The useful question isn’t “will AI take this job” — it’s which tasks go first, which get faster, and where to reposition time. That’s what the personalized report maps against your actual week.

One next move: audit how much of your week sits in the exposed tasks above — then shift time toward the durable set or investigate the adjacent roles below.

Lower-exposure adjacent roles

No adjacent role in the current data release is at least 10 points lower with ≥50% skill overlap — we don’t label anything “safer” unless the data supports it.

Related roles

Adjacent by skills or family — no exposure claim implied.

• Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products 70
• Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products 74
• Procurement Clerks 86
• Purchasing Managers 66
• Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents 68
• Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products 63

FAQ — Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products

What does a score of 63 mean for a Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products?

It means that, weighted across the 20 tasks we analyzed for this role, the task mix sits at 63 on a 0–100 exposure scale — in the most-exposed quarter of analyzed occupations. It measures task exposure to current and near-term AI capabilities, not the probability of losing a job.

Which tasks in this role are most exposed to AI?

The highest-exposure tasks are: Provide clerks with information to print on price tags, such as price, mark-ups or mark-downs, manufacturer number, season code, or style number; Authorize payment of invoices or return of merchandise; Monitor and analyze sales records, trends, or economic conditions to anticipate consumer buying patterns, company sales, and needed inventory. Exposure is scored per task from structured data, not generated by a language model.

Which parts of this job are most durable?

The current data release does not distinguish durable tasks for this role.

Is this score personalized to me?

No — this page shows the occupation-level baseline. Two people with the same title often do different work. The $9 personalized report recalculates the score from the tasks you actually do and builds a concrete 7/30/90-day plan around them.