Retail Garden Center Merchandising Buyer

Colonial Gardens, located in Blue Springs, MO, was added to our brand family in 2016. Founded in 1969, renovations began in 2017 to create an agritourism destination. It is the Garden Center, reimagined! We offer a greenhouse, nursery, café and coffee shop, event space, and farmer’s market. It’s where plants, food and farms connect. Educational classes promoting local agriculture and sustainability as well as private events are also offered.

Colonial Gardens is part of the DCA Outdoor family of brands. We are vertically integrated and take pride in being an industry leader. We’re not only streamlining the production and distribution of landscape products, but we are also working to reduce the carbon footprint. Through our continued growth and innovation, we will have the highest impact on our world.

We are searching for a driven individual that has an upbeat temperament, genuine customer service morale, has a keen creative eye when it comes to retail merchandising, is a proactive planner and coordinator, strong communicator, enjoys team collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders, and flourishes in a fast-paced environment.

The Merchandising Coordinator’s role is to provide an exceptional experience in the Garden Center through product assortment and visual merchandising. They are focused on managing inventory productivity, Garden Center presentation visually, seasonally, and providing reporting on category performance at the product level.

A passion for internal and external customer service, plants, and building relationships with customers, vendors, and teammates is important in this role. This is a customer facing role that will primarily work at Colonial Garden’s in Blue Springs, Missouri and will also travel to tradeshows throughout the year with the Retail Manager.

Key Responsibilities:

• Buyer/Merchandising – Responsible for merchandise assortment in the Garden Center. With a focus to follow trends, purchase unique product lines that express Colonial Garden’s vision and purpose. Responsible for vendor relationships.
• Visual Merchandising - Maintain the visual merchandising of the Garden Center spaces, including overall appearance, displays, signage, and planograms.
• Inventory Management– Responsible for managing store inventory levels at the vendor and category level to maximize inventory turns, sell through, and customer satisfaction.
• Sales & Customer Service Oriented – Meeting and exceeding sales targets through proper merchandise, seasonality, and visual planning. Focus on exceptional customer service, internally and externally.

Essential Job Duties:

• Develop and execute approved merchandising plans, store layouts and planograms. Ownership over retail product lines, attention at the category, sub-category, and vendor levels
• Utilize Reports and Sales Analysis to forecast and anticipate product flow, plan promotions in conjunction with Marketing and store teams
• Build relationships with vendors and negotiate prices, terms and sales agreements
• Decide initial buy quantities, along with replenishment quantities to ensure an optimal stock position, keeping in mind lead-times, vendor issues and shipping delays, along with seasonal builds
• Create the visual aspects of product in signage, display and overall presentation
• Ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction by providing excellent customer service and product knowledge

Other Duties and Responsibilities:

• Work as a team member with store employees and other managers
• Actively promote our products on the web, by writing blog posts, presenting YouTube videos, Social media posts, and our website
• Assist with facilitating classes and workshops
• Follow protocol of inventory including ordering and receiving new products, as well as cycle counts and annual physical counts
• Analyze weekly and monthly sales, stock and on-order with the goal of optimizing sales and minimizing markdowns, aligning promotions and sales for marketing purposes
• Assist with point of sale in the retail store
• Assist in opening and closing duties of the store
• Other duties as assigned

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Must work well under pressure and be able to make decisions quickly
• Organized and ability to prioritize projects well and in timely manner
• An inclusive nature with a strong value of teamwork and collaboration
• Excellent communications skills, both verbal and in writing, in person and via phone
• The capacity to weigh customer needs with value propositions in the store
• Computer skills necessary in MS Office Suite, POS system, planogram optimization and graphic design experience
• Self-motivated, positive attitude and work ethic

Minimum Qualifications:

• Required: 1-3 years merchandising and buying experience
• Required: 1-3 years visual merchandising and planograms
• Required: Flexible schedule, with weekend availability, and travel to tradeshows
• Preferred: 3-5 years Customer Service experience
• Must be 18+ years of age

Benefits you will Enjoy:

• Health, dental, and vision insurance 1st of the month after 30 days
• Generous 401k match with immediate vesting
• Company paid life insurance, STD, & LTD
• PTO and paid holidays
• Company culture centered around growth and innovation
• Career development & recognition

DCA Outdoor, Inc, is a values based, purpose driven organization in service to our family of 12 brands. We operate in 6 states, have 700 employees with revenues of $99mm. We have revolutionized the green industry through national, vertical integration. An industry leader, our mission is to cultivate growth for our customers, our employees, our company, and our world.

Our Definite Chief Aim (DCA) is to streamline the production and distribution of landscape products. We are focused on growth, innovation, and collaboration, and believe these are the keys to our continued success and will have the highest impact on our world.

We honor our core values and expect our employees to as well. They are work hard, take pride in your work, be optimistic and respectful, show commitment, and continually grow.

We invite individuals who think like we do and will position us for major organizational growth to apply today. Join us in revolutionizing the green industry!

All applicants will be required to take the Culture Index survey. If you’d like to be considered faster, please copy and paste the following into your browser to complete the survey now: https://go.apply.ci/s/A550CC0000
Please select the one named, Colonial Gardens - Merchandising Specialist.

Hourly Range: In lieu of experience - $16.00-$20.00 an hour

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