Merchant II

Overview:

Merchant II is the end-to-end owner of large, complex produce categories. This role drives full category strategy, P&L ownership, advanced merchandising execution, digital experience management, sourcing execution, supplier partnerships, and margin management.

Merchant II partners closely with Pricing, BDM/Sales, Demand Planning, and Creative/Marketing to optimize financial results and customer experience. They also manage a Buyer and help build the future merchant talent pipeline. This role drives full category strategy, P&L ownership, advanced merchandising execution, digital experience management, sourcing execution, supplier partnerships, and margin management.

Responsibilities:

Category Strategy & P&L Ownership

• Develop and execute 1–3 year category strategies including assortment architecture, pricing strategy and promotional framework, supplier portfolio and diversification strategy, innovation roadmap, and competitive response plans
• Own category P&L performance across sales, margin, shrink, DOH, OOS
• Conduct seasonal and annual business planning, present in Category Review cycles.

Merchandising & Digital Shelf Execution

• Own the entire digital experience for assigned categories, including taxonomy design, item attribute accuracy, filters & tags, SEO alignment, photography & content. -focused merchandising
• Apply advanced merchandising techniques such as SKU rationalization and lifecycle management, good/better/best tiering, pricing ladders, promotional architecture, and content governance & refresh processes
• Maintain SKU and MDM accuracy across the lifecycle (setup ? maintenance ? retirement).

Supplier Partnerships & Sourcing Execution

• Run sourcing events (RFPs, negotiations, forward prices, long-term agreements) for assigned categories.
• Own supplier performance management through scorecards, reviews, and corrective action.
• Identify cost reduction, supply assurance, and quality improvement.
• Manage category-level risk including weather, seasonality, logistics, and regional supply dynamics.

Pricing & Profitability Partnership

• Partner closely with the Pricing team to model and evaluate, pricing strategies, promotional scenarios, margin impacts, category pricing ladders
• Provide inputs that align pricing outcomes with strategic category roles and financial targets.
• Ensure pricing architecture and promotional calendar align with category strategy.

BDM & Sales Collaboration

• Partner with BDMs and Sales to build category knowledge and sales readiness, support customer-facing initiatives and provide category insights, product training, and promotional inputs
• Support National Account customer programs and innovation introductions.
• Equip customer facing teams with messaging that drives category penetration and informs key account conversations.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with demand Planning on forecasts, risk signals, and supply alignment, marketing & Creative for promotional planning, digital assets, and content accuracy, operations to ensure execution readiness and troubleshoot supply issues and finance and Pricing on financial plan alignment and reforecasts
• Represent category needs and strategy in cross-functional meetings.

People Leadership

• Directly manage assigned buyer, including goal setting, coaching, delegation, feedback, and performance reviews.
• Build future merchant capability through exposure, coaching, structured development, and clear role expectations.
• Set the operational cadence for the category team (weekly reviews, metrics focus, supplier management routines).

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum 5–8 years of experience in produce merchandising, category management, procurement, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated success managing categories end-to-end at scale to end at scale.
• Strong merchandising, negotiation, digital merchandising, and financial analysis skills.
• Experience coaching or leading junior talent strongly preferred.

Success Measures:

• Category P&L performance (sales, margin, shrink, DOH, OOS).
• Quality and effectiveness of digital and in-platform merchandising execution.
• Supplier cost, service, and performance improvements.
• Execution of sourcing events and pricing strategies.
• Capability growth and performance of Merchant I.
• Accuracy of MDM, digital content, and SKU lifecycle management.

This job description is intended to provide a general overview of the responsibilities. However, the Company reserves the right to adjust, modify, or reassign work tasks and responsibilities as needed to meet changing business needs, operational requirements, or other factors.