Merchandise Buyer

The Buyer / Sr. Buyer —owns the commercial performance of Jacent's clip-and-rack-dominant vendor category portfolio. This role is ~80% vendor-sourced and ~20% own brand — requiring strong vendor negotiation, licensed brand management, and buying fundamentals. The portfolio is primarily rack/floor programs in hard planogram environments. Title level (Buyer vs. Sr. Buyer) will be based on candidate experience. The Buyer/Sr Buyer is an experienced consumer goods specialist within a retail or wholesale business environment.

Working hands-on with cross-functional teams in sales, store operations, distribution and inventory management. This position is responsible for optimizing the overall product mix, increasing sales and gross profit margin, creating assortment plans, providing sales analytics insights to support Jacent's retail partners. This position is responsible for developing strategies and solutions to exceed company targets for sales and gross profit margin.

Reports to the VP/GMM of Merchandise Buying.

• Own and develop vendor partnerships across the portfolio; negotiate terms, pricing, minimums, exclusivities, and co-op programs
• Continuously evaluate the vendor landscape — assess existing partners and identify new sources that fill white space or improve margin
• Negotiate pricing, make packaging/product recommendations and finalize production samples with existing and new suppliers

• Analyze and maintain program assortments including making recommendations for new item introductions, item replacements, item discontinuations, and pricing through partnership with domestic vendors.
• Own the rack/in-line assortment and program management for a wide variety of categories partnering with space and assortment on productivity and profitability analyses on items and across customers
• Build and maintain vendor partnerships for rack programs; ensure fixture quality and reset cadence meet retailer requirements
• Assess needs for builds due to seasonal peaks
• Monitor sell-through and inventory position by item; identify replenishment needs early and flag risks to VP Merchandising
• Maintain clean OTB discipline and manage markdown exposure proactively
• Make assortment decisions across the vendor portfolio — what to carry, in what depth, for which accounts
• Recommend exits with clear performance rationale and replacement plan; present to VP Merchandising in business reviews

• For categories with an own-brand component, partner with VP Product Development and Taiwan on product briefs, sample review, and packaging feedback
• Bring the commercial point of view into development — what the market needs, what price point works, what the competitive set looks like

• Partner with VP Merchandising on go-to-market for new items; work with Sales on retail sell-in and exit coordination
• Own category P&L — sales, gross margin, OTB, inventory turns, and sell-through
• Collaborate and communicate with internal departments and teams such as the Retail Sales Management teams and Customer Development department regarding opportunities to ensure the customer's needs are getting met
• Partner with the Project Management team on end-to-end execution of new initiatives
• Attend relevant industry trade shows and conferences to evaluate industry trends, identify new items
• Utilize Social Media, Goggle Trends, Jungle Scout and other tools to identify current and future trends
• Visit Jacent's retail partner stores as well as their competitors to evaluate the competitive landscape
• Perform KPI program reviews based on a set review schedule
• Understand and demonstrate safe work practices at all…