Vendor Merchandise Assistant

Signet Jewelers•Irving, TX

About The Position

The Vendor Merchandise Assistant supports the Merchandise and Planning organization by building and managing relationships with vendors that provide products and services to the company. The role helps ensure vendors meet contractual obligations by delivering quality products and services on time, and contributes to organizational efficiency, productivity, and success. The assistant keeps vendors informed about organizational developments and market conditions that may affect demand, and works with vendors on production planning so their schedules align with company requirements. The position serves as a functional bridge between external vendors and internal stakeholders. It coordinates communication, vendor and product workflows, pricing and SKU management across internal systems and ecommerce, and reporting on product and vendor performance. It also identifies and communicates business risks, troubleshoots vendor issues, manages chargebacks and quality-control performance, and continuously works with internal partners to improve vendor-management processes. The role also supports cross-functional projects, product-development timelines, training materials, competitive analysis, SKU maintenance, weekly category reporting, and customer-service coordination to support a positive customer experience.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Merchandising, or a related field.
At least 1 year of experience in vendor management, merchandising, buying support, allocation/planning, supply chain, or retail operations.
Working knowledge of product/SKU setup and maintenance, pricing updates, and item attributes across enterprise systems and ecommerce platforms.
Strong organizational and project-coordination skills, with the ability to manage multiple timelines and maintain high attention to detail.
Experience tracking and reporting key metrics, including sales, margin, turns, in-stock, on-time delivery, and defect/quality-control rates, and building recurring scorecards.
Ability to identify risks involving capacity, lead time, quality, or data accuracy and communicate clear recommendations to internal partners and vendors.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Intermediate to advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite.
Customer-focused mindset, sound judgment, professionalism, and ability to handle sensitive vendor issues and chargebacks.

Responsibilities

Manage external vendor relationships within the Merchandise and Planning organization.
Facilitate communication with internal stakeholders and improve operational efficiencies; coordinate meeting and conference-call agendas and follow-up notes.
Manage pricing and retail information across internal systems and ecommerce channels.
Manage product and SKU information across systems.
Act as the functional bridge between vendors and internal stakeholders.
Coordinate vendor-management tasks, including product specification reviews, samples, product testing, product setup, online management, purchase-order tracking, special orders, photo assets, and online product exposure.
Track, measure, report, and evaluate product performance, sharing insights with internal and external partners through monthly reporting across channels and the vendor builder.
Track, measure, report, and evaluate vendor performance, and coordinate monthly standardized vendor report cards for internal stakeholders.
Identify and mitigate business risks by keeping stakeholders informed so they can make timely decisions.
Troubleshoot vendor issues and present them to management as needed.
Manage vendor chargebacks and quality-control performance, informing internal and external partners.
Identify internal improvement areas and work with stakeholders on acceptable resolutions.
Identify, implement, and continuously enhance vendor-management efficiencies.
Facilitate product-development workflows through all stages in Logility, including meeting follow-up, product proposals and quotations, samples, specification worksheets, images, product feeds, testing, and RTV notices.
Improve operational efficiency across business-partner processes.
Set up cross-functional meetings for internal and external teams, including IT, ecommerce, Creative, Marketing, Special Orders, Learning & Development, and Accounts Payable.
Liaise between vendors and merchandise teams to keep product development on track and aligned with both parties’ expectations.
Create project timelines and ensure key dates are met.
Create training documents related to the builder.
Conduct competitive analysis of merchandise categories across brick-and-mortar and ecommerce retailers.
Set up and maintain all vendor SKUs.
Provide detailed weekly reporting to merchants and vendor partners on what is and is not working within product categories.
Facilitate and support the customer-service team to help ensure a positive customer-facing experience.