Sr. Catalog Merchandiser
Company Overview
Grainger is a broad line, business-to-business distributor of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) supplies and other related products and services. More than 3.2 million businesses and institutions worldwide rely on Grainger for products such as safety gloves, ladders, motors and janitorial supplies, along with services like inventory management and technical support. These customers represent a broad collection of industries including commercial, government, healthcare and manufacturing. They place orders online, on mobile devices, through sales representatives, over the phone and at local branches. Approximately 5,000 suppliers provide Grainger with more than 1.6 million products stocked in Grainger's distribution centers and branches worldwide.
Position Description
Primary Function:
Responsible for planning and merchandising segment catalogs and marketing materials to support the company integrated marketing plan. This role will look to grow incremental revenue and product category interaction with Grainger customers by effectively building unique merchandising value and business solutions in catalogs to customer segments. Role will also build strong analytical-based product selection criteria based on the customer segments identified in the integrated marketing plan and business partner requirements. Responsible for managing the day-to-day operations, strategy, approvals and reporting required to meet multiple project deadlines
Principal Duties & Responsibilities:
- Responsible for developing catalog and marketing product merchandising strategies to ensure products are solving business solutions for customers, while bringing to life unique product sets and messaging across customer segments
- Lead channel planning process of identifying customer segments to ensure alignment with the integrated marketing plan for Grainger's large and medium businesses
- Analyze SKU performance using financial metrics and customer target segment goals to develop SKU selection for segment catalogs and marketing collateral to meet or exceed ROI goals
- Create merchandising pagination to meet best practices in catalog layout using STEP publishing tools
- Merchandise products using data and content to provide customers with easy to understand decision making criteria
- Lead annual marketing planning and resource capabilities assessment to accomplish integrated marketing plan
- Conduct competitor analysis to build merchandising decisions and opportunities
- Align merchandising to support a complete cross-channel customer experience
- Provide product selection input for online merchandising
- Responsible for digital catalog production and metrics analysis to help drive improvements for merchandising and ROI
- Develop strategies for implementing enhanced content to provide business solutions for customers
- Lead research and acquisition of product content using images, selection guides, and other enhanced content to help customer product selection
- Lead communication of segment catalog strategies to copywriter and design teams
- Project manage across business partners (Large/Medium, Circulation, Analytics, Product Managers, G.com).
- Provide proactive process improvement solutions to production issues on a deadline basis
Position Requirements:
Preferred Education & Experience:
- Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Advertising or Communications, master's degree a plus
- 5-7 years experience in marketing, merchandising or related field
- Must be able to lead without authority in a cross-functional team atmosphere
- Must be proactive and demonstrate problem solving and analytical thinking
- Agile thinker with confidence to handle unplanned situations
- Expertise in catalog direct marketing, knowledge of multi-channel marketing a plus
- Results driven and detail oriented with skill to manage simultaneous projects under tight deadlines
- Basic financial analytics experience
- Project management experience
- Ability to lead groups including Sr. Director and Director levels
- Comfortable in multi-location environment leveraging electronic workflows
- Excellent written and oral skills, strong proofreader
- Proficient in word processing with knowledge of desktop publishing
- Knowledge of content database systems (Stibo STEP) a plus
- Knowledge of Adobe and SharePoint products a plus
EEOC Statement
Grainger is an Equal Opportunity Workplace and an Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.