Merchandise Coordinator

To be considered, you must be able to come to our office in Warren, NJ (which will be moving to New Providence, NJ in July) approximately twice per week.

Position Overview:

Are you a recent or upcoming Merchandising (or related) grad and looking to get your start in the Merchandising world? If so, we have several great opportunities for you! As a Merchandise Coordinator you will be responsible for assisting in the development of product from concept to creation. This role is dynamic to say the least, as it embodies both product management and merchandising. To be successful in this role, you must have a good understanding of the product life cycle and have the ability to work within tight deadlines while managing multiple products at once. In addition, drive, detail orientation, and flexibility are also key attributes to consider when stepping into this role.

Responsibilities:

• Assist Product Management with new product concepts through brainstorm meetings, trend-shopping and market research
• Assist with the creation of sales presentations with mock-up samples, prototypes and presentation boards
• Conduct daily communication with overseas office on issues of new product development/sourcing/costing and keeping a status of all pending projects
• Assist in product spec creations by obtaining competitive samples, photographing, editing photos and creating copy
• Creating, and keeping a status of, all art requests for new products, packaging revisions and production needs
• Assist in reviewing and commenting on all production approval samples and provide customer-required samples to sales team
• Complete new item setup and other product & marketing related forms of production items for retail customers

• Responsible for monitoring and execution of customer related documents pre and post product line review to production ready phase
• Responsible for Internal (Apprise) Item Set Up & Maintenance
• Create, update, and monitor all sample tracking from customer approval to production with merchandising and CFT teams (weekly sample monitoring, tracking and reporting)
• Creation of production used templates and forms (approval grids, product power points)
• Responsible for Production Review Process: Key cross functional interface with internal/overseas merchandising teams, operations and external sales teams
• Responsible for facilitating weekly turn over meeting of all retail approved samples from the marketing team for final production readiness.
• Responsible for the completion of documentations, submissions to appropriate parties, and updates required during the entire PLM of an assortment.
• Internal Item Set Up: Ownership of the completion of set up for all required items through internal systems/forms.
• Line Review Assistance (Where Applicable)
  1. Assist team in facilitating required line review needs (PPT creation, Sample Tag Layouts, PCN Set Up, etc.
• Additional assistance duties as required relating to merchandising

Skills and Qualifying Experience:

• 0-2 years of product management experience in a CPG company.
• Ability to come to the office as-needed, up to 3x/week.
• Outgoing attitude and ability to thrive in a work hard play hard environment.
• Openness to accept constructive critique.
• Ability to work on tight deadlines and fast paced environment.
• High energy, strong work ethic and driven.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong sense of fashion, color and design.