Associate Category Manager (California)

Associate Category Manager

The Associate Category Manager supports the Senior Regional Category Manager in managing direct vendor assortments, sourcing, and merchandising strategies to drive profitable sales for California region. This role collaborates closely with cross-functional teams, including inventory, marketing, and merchandising, to ensure alignment and execution of category initiatives.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Assortment Strategy and Management

• Develop quality product assortments that drive sales and profitable growth.
• Provide strategic direction for the development of advertising and marketing initiatives to drive sales and transaction growth.
• Identify localized opportunities to ensure a merchandise assortment that meets the needs of the varied consumer base where appropriate.
• Support Nursery assortment planning, pre-season ordering, and vendor management.
• Analyze and monitor sales, trends, and economic conditions within a specific category to anticipate consumer buying patterns.
• Maintain strong understanding of the competition, the marketplace and industry. Monitor competitors' sales activities, product assortments, and pricing by reviewing daily/weekly print and electronic advertisements, as well as store visits.

Financial Accountability

• Negotiate costs, discounts, rebates, VPP (Vendor Partnership Program) and freight terms for assigned categories.
• Support Nursery Department by evaluating Key Performance Indicators.

Sourcing and Procurement

• Establish and maintain strategic supplier relationships, aligning suppliers, products, and services to meet the needs of the business.
• Work in collaboration with inventory management to determine demand forecasts for everyday and promotional opportunities.
• Attend trade shows to identify product opportunities and enhance business relationships.
• Support Senior Regional Category Manager in the identification of new nursery partners in the development and execution of plant orders and grower relationships.

Leadership and Management

• Define and implement departmental strategic objectives with both short and long-term plans developed.
• Strategic and tactical ownership, accountability, and execution for the assigned product category Line Review process.
• Demonstrate effective presentation skills of merchandising strategies to ensure buy-in and engagement across the entire organization.
• Serve as project manager for merchandising-driven initiatives in support of key categories.

Partnership and Collaboration with Cross-Functional Teams including

• Store Operations on the understanding of market and customer needs.
• Inventory management to ensure optimal in-stock levels and exit strategies.
• Marketing/Visual Merchandising to deliver improved in-store presentation, Point-of-Purchase materials, and marketing strategies.
• Develop strong working relationships with Ace counterparts to fully leverage available product assortments, customer research and partner on strategic initiatives to further category performance.
• Support the Nursery Category Manager position in a collaborative environment.

Other Essential Requirements

• Ability to exhibit and incorporate our Core Values into daily decisions and interactions with others:
• WINNING In business, money is the score. To win, we must perform, compete, and have fun. At Ace, we win through people- our strength is being helpful.
• EXCELLENCE Excellence honors God and inspires people. We aspire to be the best, to continuously improve and to inspire others by giving the team our very best.
• LOVE Love the people, love the work and love the results.
• INTEGRITY For Ace to win, we need to be able to trust each other. And trust will require us to be honest, reliable, caring, of high character and of unquestioned ethics.
• GRATITUDE We recognize that we are blessed to be in the business of serving others.
• HUMILITY We strive for greatness with a humble, modest and respectful attitude.
• TEAMWORK We will fight the natural tendency for control and credit in favor of collaboration and mutual success, recognizing thatTogether, we are Ace.

Minimum Skills, Requirements and Qualifications

• BS/BA Degree in Business Management preferred, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Interest or past work in Merchandising or Buying.
• Solid understanding of retail operations, relationship sales skills, business fundamentals, merchandising strategies and assortment planning.
• Knowledge of the neighborhood hardware store B2B and DIY customer.
• Preferred background in Nursery industry.
• Refined interpersonal skills to engage with others both written and verbal.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic business environment.
• Demonstrated organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Ability to work independently, be highly self-motivated.
• Familiarity with modern marketing techniques in electronic, digital, and social media platforms.
• Proven ability to successfully lead teams backed with strong project management skills.
• Analytical thinker, team player, customer-focused, business minded.
• Understanding of Microsoft 365 programs; Excel, Word, Teams, Power Point
• Strong working knowledge of Excel (charts, VLOOKUP's, data manipulation and macro execution).
• Travel as required.
• Standing, walking, lifting (up to 25lbs) and climbing.

Compensation Details

$70000-$75000 per year