Category Director
Northgate Market
Get more replies from employers
Send a job-specific resume in minutes.
Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
Northgate Gonzalez Market is seeking a Category Director to lead merchandising, marketing, and financial objectives for key product categories. You will build optimized price, promotion, placement, and assortment strategies in collaboration with Department Leaders, Field Team, Procurement and Operations.
Ideal candidates have proven category-management experience, strong Excel and financial analysis skills, and a track record of driving sales and margin growth within a Center Store environment.
Qualifications
- College degree preferred or 5 years equivalent experience.
- 5-10 years of retail experience preferred.
- 2-5 years experience with category management practices.
- Experience with Center Store recommended.
- WAFC RMCP program preferred.
Responsibilities
- Maintain and grow the company’s image as the premier Hispanic provider of authentic goods and flavors.
- Deliver a product portfolio that differentiates through Hispanic authenticity and customer relevance.
- Analyze category performance and develop annual category plans.
- Develop and execute strategic plans to support category sales and margins; manage assortment.
- Plan and execute promotional and brand-building plans; drive sales and margins.
- Monitor costs and negotiate favorable supplier pricing and terms.
- Conduct regular store visits to adjust strategies and improve efficiency.
- Collaborate with Marketing and Operations for successful product launches.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
Northgate Gonzalez Market has grown from one store in Anaheim in 1980 to over 40 locations across Southern California, and we’re looking for passionate, customer-focused team members to join our family. We offer flexible schedules, opportunities for growth, and an associate discount of up to 20% for you and your household—all in a positive and fun work environment where you’ll feel valued and appreciated. If you’re enthusiastic, team-oriented, and ready to build a career with us, we’d love to meet you.
This position has responsibility for the merchandising, marketing and financial objectives and decisions established for the assigned product categories through building and maximizing an optimized strategy and plan for price, promotion, placement, assortment, quality, production, work content, sourcing strategies and tactics to achieve them. Works in partnership with Department Leader, Field Team, Procurement and Operations to communicate, train and implement successful sales strategies that meet the company’s Center Store objectives.
A job title of Category Director will be considered for individuals who possess or have successfully demonstrated the following attributes or assignments:
- Demonstrated experience and proficiency managing high volume categories, capable of managing complex categories, categories with a large SKU and/or Vendor/Distributor Count, and/or can absorb added responsibilities of best practice training or leading other assigned direct reports.
- Maintain and grow our image as the premier Hispanic provider of authentic goods and flavors. Create products and programs that will deliver quality, service and customer satisfaction; Maintain our competitive edge through continuous improvement of products, processes, , suppliers, training and development.
- Deliver a portfolio of products that deliver on our goal of differentiation through Hispanic authenticity and cultural and customer relevance while also staying true to current customer trends and eating habits.
- Analyzes and ensures planned category performance across a variety of indicators – sales, gross profit, shrink, contribution and profitability and develops annual category plans based on a thorough understanding of the category, consumer, and the marketplace.
- Develops and executes strategic plans to support category sales and margin goals. Manages assortment for best use of space and ability to meet consumer needs both annually and seasonally.
- Develops and executes promotional and brand building plans for each category to drive sales and support margin goals.
- Monitors raw materials and other product costs to ensure best quality ingredients, vendor pricing and ability to manage retail prices effectively.
- Applies understanding of cost drivers along with negotiating skills to effectively negotiate the best costs with suppliers.
- Perform frequent and regular store visits to monitor and adjust store strategies – Minimum of 6 hours per week.
- Partner with Operations to review and constantly strive for improved processes that emphasize 5S cleanliness and sanitation, workplace organization, labor efficiency, associate safety, delivery of exceptional customer service, consistency of product quality, provision and utilization of appropriate equipment, and attractiveness of presentation.
- Directs the replenishment function (via assigned Replenishment support) to ensure product availability, consistency of supply, maintaining collaborative relationships with suppliers, service level objectives and applies cost-of-goods insights to drive increased efficiency.
- Reviews and recommends new products and launches, rotational seasonal offerings, quality and the number of items carried. Responsible for size of product inventory and rate of turnover.
- Works with Marketing and Operations to ensure successful communications and launch.
- Monitors and reports supplier performance with regards to price, quality, assortment and service. Frequency of review is driven by category review schedule and category role basis.
- Collects all funds available to achieve or exceed gross margin targets and to support Shopper Marketing initiatives as appropriate.
- Follows guidelines defined by the Category Role Strategic Guidelines relative to pricing, assortment, plan-o-grams.
- Assesses the competitive landscape to understand their strengths and weaknesses and identify opportunities and threats; including all trade channels.
- Identifies and develops new sourcing and procurement of products with the goal of enhancing assortments and driving sales.
- Partners with our Fresh team to develop solutions that will drive customer engagement, sales and fits within our standards for service, production, quality and availability.
- Considers and integrates Private Label merchandising into the appropriate categories according to strategic direction defined by leadership.
- College degree preferred or minimum of 5 years equivalent experience in relevant field of work.
- 5-10 years of retail experience preferred.
- 2-5 year’s experience with category management practices
- Strong preference is given to applicants who have completed the WAFC Retail Management Certificate Program (RMCP).
- Experience managing Center Store Highly Recommended
- Skilled in the following areas using internal, market and/or Nielsen/IRI data:
- Product assortment
- Promotional planning
- Placement on shelf
- Sales analysis and planning
- Demonstrated excellence in Strategic Planning as it relates to Merchandising and setting a plan for a category
- Proficient with Microsoft Excel and other business applications
- Working knowledge of Private Label strategies
- Excellent financial and data analysis capabilities
- Excellent supply chain knowledge
- Self-distributing and warehouse experience
- Able to discuss and negotiate:
- Terms
- Lower cost of goods
- Excellent communication and team building skills
- Bi-lingual (English/Spanish) strongly preferred
- While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; stand; and use the hands to handle, finger, or feel objects, tools or controls;
- The employee must frequently walk, talk or hear, and reach with the hands and arms; occasionally, the employee must crouch or kneel;
- The employee must occasionally exert or lift up to _10_ pounds carrying boxes of records and forms and frequently exert or lift moderate amounts of weight;
- Successful performance requires specific vision abilities that include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
- The job requires the ability to travel.
- The work environment is that typical of an office and retail store. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet.
- This position is headquartered in the Northgate Gonzalez Market Support Center. As such, this position is defined as full-time and on-site. Any remote work or work performed outside of the Support Center must be authorized by the Department’s Supervisor.
The job duties, elements, responsibilities, skills, functions, experience, educational factors, and the requirements and conditions listed in this job description are representative only and not exhaustive of the tasks that an employee may be required to perform. The Employer reserves the right to revise this job description at any time and to require employees to perform other tasks as circumstances or conditions of its business or the work environment change.
Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review theKnow Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.
:
:
Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws.For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.
'/%3e%3cpath%20d='M101.744%2012.4726L102.894%2016.1947L99.0021%2013.2201L101.744%2012.4726ZM105.3%208.40937H100.488L99.0026%203.59473L97.5116%208.41047L92.7%208.40385L96.5965%2011.3834L95.1055%2016.1942L99.0021%2013.2196L101.408%2011.3834L105.3%208.40992V8.40937Z'%20fill='white'/%3e%3cdefs%3e%3clinearGradient%20id='paint0_linear_5593_1381'%20x1='90'%20y1='9.44471'%20x2='99'%20y2='9.44471'%20gradientUnits='userSpaceOnUse'%3e%3cstop%20stop-color='%2300AD70'/%3e%3cstop%20offset='0.998594'%20stop-color='%2300B67A'/%3e%3cstop%20offset='1'%20stop-color='%23DCDCE6'/%3e%3c/linearGradient%3e%3c/defs%3e%3c/svg%3e){kind=small}
