Associate Merchant, 3rd Party & Collaborations - Victoria's Secret

Why You Belong Here

At Victoria’s Secret & Co, you’ll join a world-leading specialty retail brand recognized globally for innovation and excellence in lingerie and fashion. You’ll work alongside industry leaders to set the standard for what a retail brand can achieve, placing customers at the center of everything we do to create products and experiences that bring them joy.

We believe everyone deserves a place where they truly belong. We celebrate individuality and know that your passion, experience, and unique perspective strengthen our team and business. Here, you’ll be empowered to perform, grow, and engage through unmatched opportunities to develop your skills, gain real-world experience, and learn from the best in the business.

Description

Your Role:

The Associate Merchant supports the Merchant in delivering the volume and growth expectations of the Victoria’s Secret’s 3rd Party wholesale category, through comprehensive management of existing third-party brands as well as the successful onboarding of new brands. This role also supports the AdoreMe business on VS.com, through weekly recaps and monthly meetings to review selling insights and promotional alignment. Utilizing their financial acumen and understanding of the customer, the Associate Merchant is the subject matter expert in areas including, but not exclusive of, assortment and pricing architecture, SKU management, testing initiatives and launch cadence for new brands, and customer preferences. Influences leadership by sharing a strong merchant point of view that is derived from customer insights, competitive patterning and hindsighting.

Your Impact:

Customer

• Drive customer insights initiatives to influence business leaders’ decisions and to communicate actionable customer insights to cross-functional partners.

• Engage in competitive patterning to understand market trends, emerging brands, and to identify new product category opportunities for the third-party marketplace.

• Be the voice of the customer throughout new brand launches, partnering closely with digital and customer analytics team to understand all aspects of a launch: digital engagement with new creative content, revenue/demand drivers, how the customer is discovering these launches on VS website.

Product

• Support the merchant leader in delivering financial objectives and maximizing volume/profit by leveraging intuitive customer analytics from digital and stores when building seasonal strategies.

• Deliver consistent and accurate line plans, brand guides, marketing or PR requests, product information and assortment details, all while reacting with urgency and comprehending overall strategy.

• Support seasonal hindsight process by driving the communication of customer insights to influence go-forward strategies.

• Complete intake forms for new product launches

• Drive the communication of product detail to cross-functional partners.

• Support key meetings through deck preparation and completion of ad hoc requests, always staying agile and flexible.

• Facilitate sample requests if necessary and maintain in-depth knowledge of third-party samples within company sample library.

Strategy

• Align seasonal strategy and action plan for all third-party brands; influence growth/maintain/decline for each brand.

• Deliver analysis of third-party business every Monday and provide recommendations to optimize sales and inventory turn; gain alignment from merchant leaders and influence overarching takeaways for Monday Merchant Meetings and promotional recommendations for Tuesday Alignment Meetings.

• Actively advocate for digital and social marketing support for third party categories. Utilize knowledge of assortment, inventory ownership, and upcoming launches to influence inclusion of third-party products in marketing initiatives

• Communicate frequently with brand partners regarding upcoming assortments, hits and misses within each brand’s business, reorder opportunities, and inventory optimization strategies.

Financial

• Assist in developing the line plan for ongoing/anchor third party brands, including volume, margin, style/choice count, and category penetration consistent with financial goals.

• Possess financial accountability for category sales, growth, and margin.

• Understand and leverage historical data to ensure business is compared appropriately to last year.

• Develop and leverage attributes of a successful new brand launch and make recommendations accordingly for continuity or exit.

• Analyze, interpret and report financial results on a weekly basis to influence business strategy.

• Be the expert of store/regional performance by analyzing size and market trends and making appropriate recommendations.

Collaboration

• Establish and maintain strong partnerships by building rapport and communicating effectively with cross-functional partners and external brands

• With oversight from manager, function as point of contact with all brand partners, establishing and maintaining effective channel of communication

• Possess category/business knowledge to gain internal buy-in.

• Plan and lead cross functional team meetings and calls as appropriate.

• Consistently demonstrate open mindedness and free thinking when problem solving.

• Regularly share customer insights and business recommendations in cross functional forums as well as with brand partners, as appropriate.

Leadership & Talent

• Responsible for overall growth and development of an assistant merchant

• Effectively onboard new cross functional partners

Click here for benefit details related to this position.

Minimum Salary: $75,800.00
Maximum Salary: $101,535.00

VS&Co provides a range of compensation for this role as shown. Your actual salary will be determined by a number of factors, including: your specific skills and experience, geographic region, or other relevant factors.

Qualifications

Your Experience:

• College degree or equivalent experience

• 4+ years background in a retail organization, merchandising or wholesale background

• Exceptional communication skills; ability to demonstrate poise and communicate effectively with senior executives of brand partners.

• Demonstrates effective leadership skills, entrepreneurial risk mentality and strategic thinking.

• Demonstrates an understanding of current & upcoming trends relevant to the customer

• Strong prioritizing, collaboration, influencing and problem-solving skills

• Ability to be a team player and to foster a commitment to teamwork among other associates

• Systems savvy – strong experience with Excel and PowerPoint are a must

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws. Please see links: California Fair Chance Act, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Philadelphia Fair Chance Law, San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance

An equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate in hiring or terms and conditions of employment because of an individual’s race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status or any other protected category recognized by state, federal or local laws. We only hire individuals authorized for employment in the United States.