Job Requirements

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Own business and financial decisions across stores, ecom/marketplaces in collaboration with Marketing
• Sign off on assortment decisions for key portfolio categories
• Create and drive overall merchandising, and category strategies to meet company goals and objectives
• Collaborate with Licensing team to create licensing strategies that will deliver growth and excitement
• Define Private Label needs across portfolio
• Seek out, utilize and share relevant competitive analysis/trends forecasts
• Own strategy plans, including broad/strategic product presentation vision across stores, ecom and marketplaces
• Oversee the development of assortment strategy, as well as the inventory turnover and marketing plans; good, better, best strategies
• Establish specific category roles and allocate resources accordingly
• Manage merchandising category budgets and weekly, monthly, and annual forecasting
• Lead, coach and develop merchandising leadership pipeline
• Develop strategic partnerships with senior leaders, both internal and external
• Ensure positive relationships with critical vendor partners
• Collaborate with product development teams to assure product strategy is in line with merchandise plan and strategy
• Participate with Product Development on trips to Asia
• Communicate weekly business trends and forecast
• Drive the process for category and product versioning for all store velocity groupings (High, Average and Low) to ensure the minimization of inventory liabilities and driving higher product sell-thru
• In conjunction with Pricing and BI, manage the pricing strategies for all portfolio categories
• Ensure all categories plan-o-gram and merchandising strategies drive a great customer experience with product placement, flow, retails, pack sizes versus the competition

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in retail merchandising, business management or related field
• Minimum of 10 years prior experience in buying, merchandising and/or planning.
• At least 3 years at the VP/MM level-with a good understanding of merchandising financials and the ability to manage profitability
• Strong analytical aptitude
• A merchant who can see the vision of the business through the lens of the consumer
• A merchant who is comfortable taking calculated bets and acts strategically using financial data to develop a competitive advantage
• Detail oriented; must be able to dig in and communicate the details of the business
• Strong leadership and managerial skills – proven experience in building teams
• A strong, curious merchant who has a passion for the business
• Strong understanding of consumer and the party goods business
• Team player with stellar work ethic
• Strong understanding of marketing and web marketing business
• Strong knowledge Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook required