Vice President Merchandising - Chicago, Illinois

FTD Companies, we continually evolve the business by promoting a culture where solutions from the technology group help transform our business through customer-meaningful solutions, innovative technologies and business-impacting projects.

This highly crucial VP Merchandising position is responsible for overseeing, driving and tracking key strategic merchandising initiatives within our multi-brand E-Commerce company. You will be the champion for key strategic presentations and weekly/monthly business reviews. Additionally, your expertise in the field will help during the implementation of key merchandising and business initiatives designed to deliver and elevate our company during our transformation. Your team will operate with oversite of FTD's key merchandising projects.

This leadership position will bolster partnerships with business leaders and drive the success of all projects meeting deadlines. You have the opportunity to lead with a strategic perspective that uses your analysis of market trends to support these high priority initiatives to provide information of strategic decisions for Senior leadership.

What You Will Contribute:

• Financial / Operational
  • You are responsible for all merchandising KPI's such as product margin, merchandise order value, category growth, upgrade %, shipping expense take-out, refunds and all florist metrics that relate to FTD.com.
  • You will have oversight of all categories including floral, plants, gourmet and gifts. Own the existing vendor and internal company relationships approve new vendors and foster merchandising relationships with licensees.
  • You're the thought leader on driving the appropriate size of FTD's florist and drop ship assortments. The associate will completely understand the impact of assortment make-up financially, and within the roles agreed upon product and the company's portfolio strategy.
  • Your associates will prepare and present product line review decks to senior management.
  • You're accountable for helping to deliver against the consumer division goals and financials, as well as supporting the florist and quality division.
  • You lead the Floral Design Team to develop and execute trend appropriate and saleable product balancing trends, pricing, quality, florist needs and financial KPI's.
  • You champion the Buying Team to analyze and drive the business based on sales, history, company, and market trends.
  • You own the changes to plans based on merchandising strategies with the responsible for vision and execution of merchandise collections that ties back to financial plans.
  • You will be working with Operations SEO team to help deliver both a stable, long term view of fulfillment, and an ongoing effort to reduce outbound shipping expense and optimize internal vs. third party fulfillment.
  • Works with FTD's quality team in an effort to improve processes, execution, and quality scores
  • Do you enjoy working with existing and new vendors in an effort to improve processes, and to reduce costs? Vendor management is important to your team's success.
• People
  • You build relationships through effective collaboration that contributes to a high performing team. Participate as a solution-oriented team member. Lead with effective partnerships.
  • You cultivate talent and lead by example. Clearly communicate expectations and implications. Get things done through others by delegating effectively. Take ownership for direct team and the business. Filter the high points from the details. Train future leaders. Manage up, down, and across with results.
  • You foster healthy working relationships with FTD companies including Pro Flowers, Sharie's Berries and Personal Creations to create synergies.
• Marketing / Creative
  • You drive merchandising strategies via Marketing, PR and Creative.
  • We need to ensure all promotional and merchandising messages reflect best practices along with big ideas.
  • We help reinforce and define FTD's premium image in the floral and gift space
  • You are an integral member of defining FTD's brand position
  • You get to work to support brand building and content development
• Strategy
  • You have the opportunity to support brand building and content development
  • Your strategic merchandising direction across cross-functional team helps to develop and drive a short and long term strategic view of assortment. You also ensure department strategies sync with division strategies.
  • You guide, lead and execute strategies by providing overall context and vision and ensuring alignment while integrated retail and e-commerce best practices
  • Identify opportunities for growth /decline by classification. Ensure assortment supports department and brand strategies.
  • You analyze broader competitive information and make recommendations to manager on how to integrate information into the business. Articulate business impact and interpret /anticipate the competition's tactics through observation of their in-season trends, utilization of retail space, co-branding, etc.
  • Demonstrate a deep understanding of competitive pricing and positioning.

What we seek:

Is a phenomenal VP with the ability and interest in working on a broad variety of different projects and technologies who loves to analyze and identify trends, and is excited about building the team and is passionate about merchandizing initiatives? These is what we are looking for;

• We need high proficiency in organizational and communication skills with the ability to convey the vision to buyers, marketers, vendors, florists, and senior management.
• We desire strong active listening and with the ability to listen to business objectives while translating those objectives into the right products.
• We seek the knowledge and proficiency in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and ability to conduct programs and presentations.
• If you have a Business or Marketing Degree that experience a plus with at least 10+ years' experience in online merchandising and marketing
• Excellent communications skills, both verbal and written.
• We need a team player that is able to work well across multiple departments, such as Marketing, IT, and Finance.
• Do you show the ability to learn new technologies?
• Do you have the ability to hire, manage, and discipline employees?

What we offer:

A great VP Merchandising Strategy opportunity to be a part of building a team that rises to the challenge and eagerly charges towards deadlines. We encourage and welcome out of the box ideas in all areas like artificial intelligence, data processing, and information retrieval, voice capabilities, automation, computer vision, and other ideas welcome. We greatly enjoy all the benefits of working for a digital E-Commerce Company (flexible hours, a healthy vacation plan, summer hours) in a relaxed work environment.

We strongly embrace the definition of a "flat" organization where you will spend time with business leaders, managers, developers, product management and executive leadership. There are job opportunities, and then there are career opportunities... Let us provide you with a career where you look forward to Mondays. Careers that have a positive impact and offer you a future as we change, grow, expand and explore new and exciting experiences for our global customer base.

Reporting to: Rob Van Auken, Sr. Vice President & General Manager of FTD.com

Location: Downers Grove

Hours: Full-time Monday through Friday

Connect on LinkedIn with the Recruiter: Duarte R Mendonca