Merchant & Wayfair Basics Lead

This position is M-TH in office and Fridays are remote. 

As a Wayfair Curated Merchant, you will develop, execute and drive annual and seasonal assortment strategies for your categories. In this role, you will be responsible for category ownership and product curation, influencing how your category comes to life across all Wayfair marketing channels (catalog, digital, social media, and Physical Retail), ensuring accurate product representation and appropriate shelf placement. As the Wayfair Basics lead, you will drive the commodity assortment strategy for our proprietary opening price-point private label brand. The Wayfair Curated Merchant & Wayfair Basics Lead will foster strong cross functional relationships to ensure all strategies and goals are achieved, acting as the representative of the customer in strategic decisions on the cross-functional team. They will partner with teams across Brand Management, Category Management, Creative, Marketing, Analytics & Operations, and external suppliers to ensure the strategic vision is executed all the way to the customer. Leveraging both data-driven qualitative and quantitative insights, you’ll make a direct impact on overall sales, Wayfair share gains, and inspire and empower customers to create a home just right for them.  

What you’ll do on any given day as a curated merchant...

As a Wayfair Curated Merchant & Wayfair Basics Lead, you will build, curate, and maintain category assortment strategies for our marketing channels, inclusive of developing a shelf space plan and actively selecting and iterating on the product offering (own identifying and filling assortment gaps from strategic supplier catalogs). You will ultimately decide what products should be highlighted and amplified across all marketing channels with crisp business justification to support your selections and in alignment with key stakeholders. You will study the competitive market and collaborate with cross-functional partners in order to shape and solidify the direction for your category and to ensure it is competitive in product and price.  You are the product expert - you know our customer’s needs better than anyone else for your category and are constantly thinking about what tomorrow’s best sellers will be to continue to surprise and delight our target market.

Your success requires tenacity, agility, speed, an analytical mindset, collaboration, influence, and a competitive spirit. You’ll use your executive presence to work with and influence stakeholders at all levels and navigate interesting, complex assortment challenges. You will own the performance results though regularly monitoring assortment health though various KPIs and OKRs. 

What You’ll Do 

• Build and maintain category assortment strategies, inclusive of developing a shelf space plan and actively selecting, developing and iterating on the product offering
• Identify opportunities for category growth, utilizing competitive analysis, trend research, and internal performance monitoring as data points
• Partner closely with Category Management, Creative, and Brand teams, as well as external suppliers, to determine how best to bring the selection to life in digital, print, and stores
• Maintain a close pulse on trends and customer needs to identify new assortment opportunities. Find products that deliver compelling newness and have potential to be tomorrow’s best sellers.
• Own the financial outcomes for the performance of the products you placed on the premium shelf spaces.  Regularly assess performance and revise assortment and shelf space allocation strategy as needed.  
• Challenge the status quo and always be on the lookout for ways to streamline and improve the efficiency of existing processes while effectively managing multiple stakeholders
• Support market research opportunities for category growth, utilizing competitive analysis, competitor shopping, and internal performance monitoring as data points
• Manage, and develop team of direct report(s) who will support category ownership
• Travel 2-4 times per year to attend industry trade shows relevant to your categories to partner with strategic suppliers, visit Wayfair stores, and competitive shop.

Who You Are

• 4-6 years experience within a retail and/or omni-channel buying role with demonstrated growth trajectory of P&L size and scope of category/team responsibility  
• Experience buying trend-driven categories, curating assortments from a wide range of vendors and classifications, and developing compelling assortment presentations are all highly preferred.
• 1-2 of years of experience managing people
• Strong ability to analyze data and think critically about the business, understand and interpret performance trends, and apply learnings to the business  
• Strong creative sense, elevated taste level, and love of product.  A genuine passion for industry trends, product design, and home decorating is a plus.
• Excellent communication/persuasion skills and ability to influence internal and external stakeholders to align behind and execute against a common goal
• Capable of thriving in a high-growth environment in which defining clarity amidst ambiguity and operating in “scrappy start-up building mode” are everyday activities.  Demonstrated experience piloting and implementing new processes and hiring/staffing new teams are a plus.
• Self-starter motivated by the potential to define a creative and strategic vision and have an outsized impact within a team and company
• Ability to work from Wayfair’s Boston headquarters 4 days per week (remote 1 day a week), with travel for competitor diligence, trade shows, and/or vendor meetings