Sr. Manager Front Room Site Merchandising

Advance Stores Company•Raleigh, NC

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Sr. Manager, Front Room Site Merchandising owns customer-facing merchandising experiences across homepage, cross-site surfaces, category landing pages, and on-site search for Advance Auto Parts. This role is accountable for how customers discover, navigate, and engage with categories—connecting Front Room merchandising strategy, seasonal priorities, and brand storytelling to high-impact digital execution. Reporting to the Head of Ecommerce, this leader works in close partnership with the VP, Front Room Merchandising and Category Merchant Directors, translating category strategy into scalable, friction-reduced site experiences. This role leads and develops a team of Category Site Merchants, each owning an assigned category, and collaborates extensively across Merchandising, SEO, Content, Analytics, Product, and Technology to ensure strong findability, relevance, and conversion.

Requirements

Proven experience leading and developing teams, with the ability to set priorities, coach performance, and drive accountability
Strong site merchandising expertise with the ability to translate category strategy into scalable site execution
Deep understanding of customer intent, browse behavior, on-site search, and taxonomy best practices
Demonstrated success influencing senior stakeholders and executing in highly cross-functional environments
Strong analytical acumen, creative briefing capability, and experimentation mindset
7+ years of experience in site merchandising, digital experience management, or ecommerce merchandising
3+ years of people-leadership experience, leading managers or individual contributors aligned to category or experience ownership
Demonstrated ownership of homepage, cross-site, and category landing page programs
Experience leading or heavily influencing on-site search and taxonomy strategies
Proven experience partnering closely with category merchants or merchant leadership
Experience working with third-party ecommerce content management or digital experience platforms (e.g., headless CMS, experience builders, merchandising or optimization platforms) a plus
Bachelor’s degree

Nice To Haves

Preferred experience with onsite retail media, app + web orchestration, personalization, or experimentation platforms
advanced degree a plus

Responsibilities

Own Front Room site merchandising strategy across homepage, cross-site promotions, category landers, and browse experiences
Translate Front Room category strategies, seasonal campaigns, and brand moments into compelling customer-facing site experiences
Partner closely with the Merchandising to operationalize category strategies through on-site storytelling, assortment presentation, and navigation
Lead, coach, and develop a team of Category Site Merchants, with each owning end-to-end performance for their assigned category experiences
Set clear expectations, goals, and performance standards aligned to category priorities and business outcomes
Establish category-level ownership models, roles, SLAs, and escalation paths in alignment with Category Merchant Directors
Foster a data-driven, test-and-learn culture across the team
Own Front Room on-site search optimization strategy, ensuring search results reflect customer intent, relevance, and merchant priorities
Partner with Product, Search, SEO, and Analytics teams to improve query mapping, ranking logic, and browse/search integration
Lead taxonomy and navigation strategy for Front Room categories, ensuring product classification and browse paths align to category merchandising strategies
Design and optimize browse-to-product flows using behavioral insights, on-site search data, and heatmap analytics
Ensure category experiences surface compatible products, fitment context, and use-case guidance to build shopper confidence
Execute A/B and multivariate tests across layouts, content modules, messaging, and visual hierarchy; scale learnings through reusable playbooks
Monitor KPIs including CTR, search exit rate, PDP discovery rate, conversion rate, attachment, and engagement to drive continuous optimization
Partner with Category Merchant Directors, SEO, Content Strategy, Item Health, Creative, Retail Media, Product, and Technology teams
Lead weekly publishing and refresh cadences, ensuring accuracy, speed, and consistency across all Front Room surfaces