What you will be doing

The Assistant Category Manager will report to the National Category Director and be responsible for partnering with the National Category Director and division merchants to develop and manage the overall merchandising strategy for one of our FRESH categories (Produce, Meat & Seafood, Deli Food Services, Bakery, or Floral).

The position will be in one of our corporate offices (Boise, ID, Bellevue WA, Clackamas OR, Pleasanton CA, Fullerton CA, Phoenix AZ, Denver CO, Itasca IL, Arlington TX, Lanham, MD, Malvern PA, Lubbock, TX, or West Bridgewater MA.

Main responsibilities

• Category Management
  • Partners with the National Category Director to strategically manage category(s) to meet sales, profit, and market share targets
  • Assists the Category Director in developing the assortment, shelf planograms, and pricing & promotions strategy, based on a detailed and analytically driven category planning process with divisions and functional leaders
  • Partners with national and division merchants to maximize category performance
  • Serves as the company’s Subject Matter Expert (SME) for assigned category(s)
  • Researches category trends, market conditions, innovations, competitors, and regional preferences
• Supplier Relationships
  • Assists the Category Director to prepare supplier negotiations strategies
  • Attends vendor meetings as needed. Evaluates supplier performance, working with the divisions and procurement team as needed
  • Communicates negotiations outcomes to divisions to enable them to plan and execute promotional events and local ads
  • Prepares data analyses, including category / supplier trends, to be used as leverage for negotiations
• Data & Analytics
  • Leverages data to drive category planning. Maintains weekly, quarterly and yearly scorecards to track sales, profit, and market share of each category
  • Utilizes merchant tools to conduct category data analysis (customer decision trees, profitability and growth trends, promotional assessments, pricing trends, and sales trends)
  • Works closely with functional team members and division merchants to collect and synthesize inputs (for example, division promotional funding, local assortment considerations, Own Brands considerations, eCommerce strategy, and competitor benchmarking sets) to be used during the merchandising planning process
• Collaboration
  • Collaborates with the category(s) team members to understand division needs and commitments and integrates these into the overall category plan
  • Works with cross-functional teams to develop both strategic and tactical solutions. Helps to cultivate team morale, motivation, and loyalty by assisting in training and mentorship programs for the category team members
• Diversity & Inclusion
  • Fosters a diverse and inclusive team and work environment and role models our culture and leadership practices

The salary range is $95,400 to $123,900 annually. Starting salary will vary based on criteria such as location, experience, and qualifications. There may be flexibility for exceptional candidates. Benefits may include medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, sick pay (accrued based on hours worked), PTO/Vacation Pay (accrued based on hours worked) or Flexible Time Off, paid holidays (8-9 days annually), bereavement pay, and retirement benefits (such as 401(k) eligibility). Associates in this position are also eligible for a quarterly bonus.

What we are searching for

• 1+ year of category experience, 3+ years in the grocery industry
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent work experience (Business, Marketing, or related field)
• Previous store operations experience with a strong understanding of operations and merchandising
• Quantitative, marketing, merchandising and consumer research background to read, interpret and understand how internal and external factors influence financial results
• Ability to interpret profit and loss statement and understand how the components affect category performance
• Experience with merchandising tools (Periscope, Demand Tech, I2E, BI Dashboards, GOLD, OMNI tool)
• Proficient in Microsoft Suite (esp. Excel and PowerPoint)
• TRAVEL: Up to 20%