What are the responsibilities and job description for the Purchasing Agent position at Instone?
About Instone
Instone Co is the largest wholesale distributor of premium manufactured and natural thin veneer stone in the United States. We supply stone veneer, masonry, hardscape, and modular fireplace products to dealers across the US and Canada from six distribution centers, and we have been doing it for more than 30 years. Instone is part of Capstone Holding Corp, a building products distribution platform that also includes Canadian Stone Industries and Carolina Stone.
Our promise to dealers is availability: when they need stone, it is on the shelf and on the truck. Purchasing is how we keep that promise.
The role
You will own the buy for a defined group of product lines across our North American warehouse network. That means deciding what to order, how much, from whom, and when, and deciding when to move inventory we already own instead of buying more.
You will work both domestic manufacturers and overseas quarries, which puts two very different clocks on the same shelf: a domestic replenishment cycle measured in days and an import container cycle measured in months. Reading both correctly, for the same SKU, in six warehouses, is the job.
What you will do
Replenishment
- Run the weekly reorder cycle for your product lines across every warehouse that stocks them.
- Set, review, and defend order points. Adjust for season, new business, and vendor capacity rather than following a stale number.
- Round orders to the unit that actually ships: pallet, full truckload, or container.
- Keep open purchase orders current in the ERP so sales and customer service can promise dates they can hold.
Cross-warehouse transfers
- Compare a transfer against a purchase on every short line. If one warehouse is long and another is short, move it.
- Coordinate transfer loads with warehouse supervisors and the transportation team, including cross-border movement between the US and Canada.
Imports and container planning
- Build container loads to weight and volume targets, mixing product to fill without going over.
- Manage overseas production schedules, booking, sailing dates, and arrival timing against warehouse need.
- Work with customs brokers and freight forwarders on documentation, duty, and cross-border compliance.
Vendor management
- Serve as the day-to-day contact for your vendors. Confirm acknowledgements, ship dates, and production commitments.
- Escalate capacity constraints and lead-time changes early, with a recommendation attached.
- Resolve short shipments, damage, and receiving discrepancies with the warehouse and accounting teams.
Working across the business
- Flag stock-out risk before it reaches a customer, not after.
- Take input from sales on committed volume and project timelines that the historical numbers do not yet reflect.
- Support cost changes, landed cost reviews, and inventory cleanup on slow-moving product.
What you bring
Required:
- 3 years in purchasing, replenishment, or inventory planning for a distributor, wholesaler, or manufacturer.
- Experience buying for more than one stocking location.
- Strong Excel: pivot tables, lookups, and comfort working through several thousand rows of ERP export without losing the thread.
- Hands-on ERP experience. Sage 100 is a plus; any full ERP is fine.
- Judgment. Our order points are a starting point, not an answer, and we need someone who can tell the difference and explain the call.
- Clear written communication. Most vendor negotiation happens over email.
Helpful, not required:
- Building materials, masonry, landscape supply, or another heavy or palletized product category.
- Import experience: containers, Incoterms, customs brokerage, duty, and consolidation.
- Cross-border US and Canada purchasing, including CAD and USD cost management.
- Familiarity with MRP logic, order point methodology, or demand forecasting.
Why this role is worth your time
- Real ownership. You will run your lines. Nobody rekeys your decisions.
- Scope that grows. Capstone has added three stone businesses since 2024 and continues to acquire. More warehouses, more lines, more to buy.
- Better tools, and a say in them. We are actively replacing spreadsheet-driven reorder work with live reorder and transfer intelligence built directly on our ERP data. Whoever takes this role will be a primary user and will shape what gets built next.
Pay: $65,000.00 - $85,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
Salary : $65,000 - $85,000