Assistant Merchandiser

OverviewAssistant Merchandiser Permanent £35,500 - £45,000 + Bonus + Pension + Private Health Care + ShareSave + 6.6 weeks holiday + Hybrid WorkingSouthampton, Store Support OfficeWe believe anyone can improve their home to make life better. From our Southampton Store Support office (SSO) we equip our stores, our people, and our whole business with everything it takes to help our millions of customers create a home they’ll love. Join us as an Assistant Merchandiser and you’ll be a big part of this.

At B&Q we have a hybrid approach to working to increase flexibility in when and where we work. For this role we are looking for someone to be able to work from our head office 3 days a week. What's the job? Work with the Merchandising Manager to curate and deliver an inspirational range that meets the needs of our customers. Within a specific sub category, you’ll use insights and analysis to maximise sales and margin (£GM & GM%) opportunities and market share across all channels, improving sales and profit density and stock efficiency.

Work alongside the Merchandising Manager to develop a category proposition that meets our customer needs, identifying opportunities and mitigating risk, whilst protecting sales, margin, stock efficiency and market share targetsSupport the Merchandising Manager in creating a compelling range hierarchy, incorporating assortment, space, inventory and fulfilment principles, which reflects the category strategy and meets the needs of our customers across all channels, delivering our vision of supporting all customers with access to DIY/Trade productsReview and monitor subcategory performance, with the buying team, through reporting and analytics, take action to reflect changing sales and trendsSupport in managing and creating sales and budget forecasts and associated business cases, including PIRs, for specific categories, ensuring shortfalls or risks to plan are identified and addressedWork collaboratively with the Supply team to optimise availability, stock and sales whilst ensuring stock exit plans are in place to support range change activity (range, promotions, clearance) and are delivered to agreed targetsOwn the Clean Stock process for clearance for the categoryWith the Range and Space team, identify and target areas to improve sales and profit densityCreate line level promotional and range change sales and stock forecasts for all channelsWork collaboratively with the Commercial Planning team to ensure all products have appropriate fulfilment routes, maximising customer reachWith the Merchandising Manager , manage the product lifecycle including range performance, identifying, and optimising trading opportunities and the delivery of range reviewsSupport the Merchandising Manager with the project management of small and medium range reviews, adhering to current processes and within time, cost and quality parametersWork closely with the team to support day to day trading activities including analysis, promotional activity sign off, stock management and range planningUse support tools such as Viva to share category information and respond to queries from storesConduct regular store (digital & physical), competitor and vendor visits, to increase understanding of the market and support the creation of the trading plan and inform decisionsManage and influence stakeholders across a range of levels, internally and externally, to support the delivery of KPIsUndertake other duties from time to time as may be reasonably requiredWhat We NeedPrevious experience of trading product ranges across multiple sales channelsNumerical and analytical with strong attention to detailCommercially focussed with the ability to understand financial insights and translate this into key business deliverablesKnowledge and understanding of the home improvement market and product seasonalityAbility to understand customer insights and market trendsAbility to drive business performance using insights and knowledge to deliver an agile trading plan.

Ability to understand and manage complex range architectureStrong communicatorAbility to build relationships at all levelsCommercial and financial awarenessIntermediate Microsoft Office skills, in particular Excel and PowerPointPrior merchandising/ retail experience What's in it for me? As well as a competitive salary, our benefits package includes an award-winning pension scheme, bonus, ShareSave options, 6.6 weeks holiday, payroll giving, an Employee Assistance Programme, shopping discounts, colleague wellbeing benefits and lots more!

As part of a great team, you’ll be supported to grow and encouraged to explore new career directions within the business and the wider group. And, because you’ll be inspiring great things for our customers and the whole business, you’ll do work worth caring about.