Senior Merchant
About The Position
Responsible for establishing merchandising objectives for a category or categories of merchandise. This role drives the financial planning process, managing it from recommending targets to pricing optimization. It also drives the assortment planning process, from business performance review to supplier negotiations, and creates operational plans for SOAR execution. The Senior Merchant oversees the supplier management strategy, working to source and rationalize suppliers to meet business needs, and is responsible for approximately $500 million in business dollars. Problems are typically defined by higher-level leadership and are difficult, requiring analysis and investigation. The role involves deciding how to achieve planned results within organizational plans, policies, and guidelines, and may set or change plans/goals within the respective department or area. The Senior Merchant may manage a department via multiple layers of managers or directly supervise a staff of professional individual contributors at the senior or technical advisor level.
Requirements
- Typically requires BS/BA in a related discipline.
- Generally 9+ years of experience in a related field, including several years in a management/supervisory capacity.
Responsibilities
- Acts as key decision maker on merchandising and finance operational issues.
- Utilizes current market data (industry/competitive) to drive merchandising strategy.
- Determines consumers to target for a specific category and collaboratively decides the strategic direction of the business segment.
- Executes and manages visual merchandising, new concept development, marketing / catalog, vendor services, inventory management, and supply chain issues.
- Responsible for developing and executing plan to meet annual financial goals which include Sales Performance, Category Profitability and Category Inventory Productivity.
- Makes key decisions and manages supplier strategy (e.g. import vs. domestic, national vs. proprietary).
- Reviews the supplier portfolio on an ongoing basis to ensure suppliers maintain the bandwidth to support changing needs.
- Works with key functions to source new suppliers.
- Manages key projects within a business function (e.g. capital).
- Acts as the project champion and assists with setting the overall direction and defining the measures of success.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees
