Merchant - Early Careers

Wayfair LLC•Boston, MA

68d•$64,000 - $68,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Merchant, you will develop, execute and drive annual and seasonal assortment strategies for your categories. In this role, you will be responsible for category ownership and product curation, influencing how your category comes to life across all Wayfair marketing channels (catalog, digital, social media, and Physical Retail), ensuring accurate product representation and appropriate shelf placement. As a Merchant you will foster strong cross functional relationships to ensure all strategies and goals are achieved, acting as the representative of the customer in strategic decisions on the cross-functional team. The Merchant will partner with teams across Brand Management, Category Management, Creative, Marketing, Analytics & Operations, and external suppliers to ensure the strategic vision is executed all the way to the customer. Leveraging both data-driven qualitative and quantitative insights, you'll make a direct impact on overall sales, Wayfair share gains, and inspire and empower customers to create a home just right for them. As a Merchant, you will build, curate, and maintain category assortment strategies for our marketing channels, inclusive of developing a shelf space plan and actively selecting and iterating on the product offering (own identifying and filling assortment gaps from strategic supplier catalogs). You will ultimately decide what products should be highlighted and amplified across all marketing channels with crisp business justification to support your selections and in alignment with key stakeholders. You will study the competitive market and collaborate with cross-functional partners in order to shape and solidify the direction for your category and to ensure it is competitive in product and price. You are the product expert - you know our customer's needs better than anyone else for your category and are constantly thinking about what tomorrow's best sellers will be to continue to surprise and delight our target market. Your success requires tenacity, agility, speed, an analytical mindset, collaboration, influence, and a competitive spirit. You'll use your executive presence to work with and influence stakeholders at all levels and navigate interesting, complex assortment challenges. You will own the performance results though regularly monitoring assortment health though various KPIs and OKRs. As a Merchant Coordinator, you will play a critical role in supporting Wayfair's merchant teams by ensuring the tactical execution of category strategies. This position focuses on the hands-on implementation of merchandising and assortment plans, with a core emphasis on auditing physical product samples to confirm quality, accuracy, and alignment with Wayfair standards and rubrics.This is an excellent entry point into a merchandising career, offering the opportunity to: Build a foundational understanding of Wayfair's product categories and merchandising processes. Gain visibility into assortment strategy development while contributing to the executional backbone that makes those strategies possible. Develop practical experience in auditing, product operations, and cross-functional collaboration that sets you up for future progression within the merchant or category management career path. Your work will ensure that the products customers see - online and in-store - meet our quality standards and are represented consistently across Wayfair's channels.

Requirements

Up to 3 years of transferable experience in a corporate environment, including internship and co-op experience.
Authorization to work in the United States without visa sponsorship by Wayfair now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Experience within a retail and/or omni-channel buying role with demonstrated growth trajectory of P&L size and scope of category/team responsibility.
Experience buying trend-driven categories, curating assortments from a wide range of vendors and classifications, and developing compelling assortment presentations are all highly preferred.
Strong ability to analyze data and think critically about the business, understand and interpret performance trends, and apply learnings to the business.
Strong creative sense, elevated taste level, and love of product. A genuine passion for industry trends, product design, and home decorating is a plus.
Personable and energetic communication/persuasion skills and ability to influence internal and external stakeholders to align behind and execute against a common goal.
Capable of thriving in a high-growth environment in which defining clarity amidst ambiguity and operating in "scrappy start-up building mode" are everyday activities. Demonstrated experience piloting and implementing new processes and hiring/staffing new teams are a plus.
Self-starter motivated by the potential to define a creative and strategic vision and have an outsized impact within a team and company.
Ability to work from Wayfair's Boston headquarters 4 days per week (remote 1 day a week), with travel for competitor diligence, trade shows, and/or vendor meetings.

Responsibilities

Build, curate, and maintain category assortment strategies for our marketing channels, inclusive of developing a shelf space plan and actively selecting and iterating on the product offering (own identifying and filling assortment gaps from strategic supplier catalogs).
Decide what products should be highlighted and amplified across all marketing channels with crisp business justification to support your selections and in alignment with key stakeholders.
Study the competitive market and collaborate with cross-functional partners in order to shape and solidify the direction for your category and to ensure it is competitive in product and price.
Support merchant teams with executional tasks that bring the category assortment strategies to life.
Provide operational support on merchandising workflows such as SKU setup/change requests, quality scale review, and documentation.
Physically audit products within the curated assortment 2-3 days per week in the Retail Lab, highlighting key selling points and ensuring accuracy of attributes, and quality standards meet the rubric requirements.
Document and communicate audit results, escalating issues to category merchants while also partnering with Operations and Analytics to share feedback on audit processes and tools to improve efficiency and accuracy.
Gain exposure to competitive analysis, category performance reporting, and trend monitoring as part of your development toward broader merchandising responsibilities.
Provides support to merchants for prep & execution of key supplier touch points (i.e. preparing for tradeshows / vendor meetings, reviewing product proposals)

Benefits

Full health benefits available (Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA/FSA) on day one for eligible employees.
No-cost access to 2nd.MD, a virtual expert medical consultation and navigation service.
Global Traveler Health Insurance through GeoBlue.
24/7 access to mental, financial, physical and emotional wellbeing support, plus an enhanced offering of therapy and coaching.
Automatic enrollment into Basic Life and Accidental Death & Disability Insurance.
401(k) matching with immediate vesting.
Paid Parental Leave, Surrogacy & Adoption Reimbursement and Caregiver Services.
Tuition Reimbursement.
Wayfair Employee Discount.
Gym/Fitness Discounts (including Peloton, Wellhub and varying regional memberships).
Exclusive access to thousands of perks & discounts through BenefitHub.
Yearly match up to $500 for personal donations made by employees to registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits.