Merchandiser

Triple Wimbledon champion Fred Perry founded his brand in 1952. He was the son of a cotton spinner, who played and fought his way through, always with style - and despite the establishment. Today, Fred Perry is a global community of over 370 employees, all inspired by the Laurel Wreath and what it represents.

PURPOSE:

A Merchandiser at Fred Perry operates within a brand led framework that will often challenge the norms of this function. This role ensures an understanding of the customers needs by channel and with a digital first approach, uses the information to make considered commercial decisions that positively impacts the profitability of the department and minimises terminal.

The Merchandiser will drive the buy for Retail (Full and Off price) through analysis and range building and under the guidance of the Merchandising Manager. Dynamic and proactive management of the lifecycle of stock in the retail business is fundamental to the success in this role. Management and coaching of the Assistant Merchandisers and Merchandising Admin Assistants ensures the professional growth of the team and contributes to effective succession planning for the future.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Planning

• Formulating range strategy and building commercially viable ranges in collaboration with Merchandising Manager and Buying Manager.
• Formulates and proposes planning parameters for product areas by analysing past, current, future and proposed season ranges and producing analysis to support them.
• Plan best-fit product mix by market and concept type, whilst recognising needs of the brand.
• Prepare and plan seasonal sales (full price and markdown), terminal stocks and calculate seasonal buy.
• Manage department OTB - continually identifying risks/ opportunities to maintain flexibility and optimise trade.
• Present quarterly business insights, key actions & recommendations to MD & Leadership team.
• Ownership of budgets, forecasting and management of OTB for Off Price business.
• Manage the WSSI process including; ensuring OTB is managed through accurate forecasting.
• Oversee Off Price seasonal SMO buy to ensure surplus inventory is supported by a strong seasonal range.
• Ownership of terminal stock in the business, presenting a quarterly terminal plan to leadership team.
• Working with Head of Sales to execute terminal offers with key clearance partners.
• Oversee line cards, options plans, size analysis, initial allocations and replenishment profiles, executing with assistant merchandiser accordingly.
• Periodically review space documentation and action space changes in stores.
• Develop relationships with cross functional peers across Planning, Product Development and Marketing.
• Feed Retail yearly and monthly stock requirements to BI and Logistics departments.
• Work closely with BI team to influence and structure department reporting on Power BI.

Trading

• Deliver the planned sales and profitability of Fred Perry Retail by managing effective budgeting and in season trading.
• Alongside Merchandising Manager devise and execute commercial decisions that improves the profitability of the department & minimise discounting.
• Manage strategic trading for product categories by analysing past, current, future quarter ranges and producing data driven analysis to support.
• Prepare for and attend Weekly Trade meeting and ensure appropriate actions for the week ahead are actioned upon.
• Highlight commercial opportunities that dovetail effectively into the seasonal product direction.
• Display an in-depth, customer-focused knowledge of market, trends and retail performance.
• Working closely with the Social Commerce team, offer trading insights and help shape strategy to drive performance based on Regular analysis of Category performance.
• Manage end of season markdowns and propose sale strategy to Merchandising Manager. Reviewing the impact of proposed markdown on planned terminal stocks and profit levels.
• Ensure regular communication with Retail ops, Visual Merchandising, stores visits & Marketing to monitor performance of stock and identify opportunities.

Team

• Management and development of team to ensure consistent motivation.
• Effective execution of day-to-day tasks though clear task and time management.
• Perform annual appraisal, mid-year reviews and day to day coaching as required.
• Be able to step up to work outside of department remit to support the Management team with projects, deputise for the Merchandise Manager when appropriate.

THE PERSON:

• Numerate with strong analytical ability.
• Advanced Excel knowledge required.
• Team leader capable of coaching and taking the team to the next level.
• Team player - build strong and cooperative relationships cross functionally across the business.
• Highly organised with great attention to detail.
• Proactive and a good time manager.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Commercial Awareness - Demonstrate a good understanding of what is happening in the retail market and the impact this may have on our business.
• Effective "change agent," proposing and driving effective change in area and empowering your team to embrace change.

HOURS:

We actively encourage our teams to have a good work/life balance and so we are pleased to offer flexible working shifts at Fred Perry HQ. Our core shift hours are from 10am - 4.30pm and so employees can choose to start and finish early, or start and finish late. (i.e. work 8:00am-4:30pm, or 10:00am-6:30pm etc). We also have 30-minute early finish on Fridays.

As we continue to work in a more flexible way, the Head Office acts a brand hub, where we can all connect and collaborate with one another. This role is a mix of office based (London) and remote working. We will expect the employee to come into the office regularly for face-to-face meetings and to work alongside their team on collaborative projects.

BENEFITS:

We are proud to offer a wide range of benefits to all our staff, and continue to reassess what our community needs from us to thrive. We don't want to be a good company to work for, we want to be a great one. Here are some things we currently offer:

• Annual performance-related bonus.
• Competitive salary, reviewed every year.
• Generous staff discount and regular sample sales.
• Generous pension scheme with 8.5% company contribution.
• Option to buy an extra 5 days holiday annually.
• Enhanced maternity and paternity packages.
• Life insurance.
• Private healthcare.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Early finish Fridays.
• Season ticket loan.
• 25 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays.
• Annual Birthday vouchers.
• Regular opportunities to attend gigs / events.

We actively welcome applications from people of all different backgrounds. Your CV will be submitted to hiring managers with all personal details hidden to ensure anonymity.