Category Manager job in St. Paul

Attention category managers, data enthusiasts, and natural foodies: Would you like to apply your business and retail expertise to supporting socially responsible, independent, and community-owned grocery stores? Do you enjoy building relationships and digging into data to develop business insights?

National Co+op Grocers (NCG) seeks an energetic, experienced, service and detail-oriented individual with a passion for food and retail to implement our purchasing programs. NCG Category Managers work to develop and execute strategies to support NCG's members with promotions, pricing (and margin), product mix, and shelf placement. This position is responsible for soliciting, negotiating and securing promotions and new item introductions with vendors/ brokers on behalf of NCG's retailers. Experience with retail grocery category management is strongly preferred and strong Excel skills are a must for the successful candidate.

This position will be based in NCG’s St. Paul, MN office, and requires up to 30% business travel. Relocation assistance is available for this opportunity!

Locally owned by members of the community, co-ops keep their investment dollars in the vicinity by supporting local farmers, food artisans, and other local businesses, and providing jobs for people in the area. Be a part of something great!

Primary Responsibilities:
• Analyze data on consumer behavior and the performance of categories, sub-categories, product segments, and SKUs to identify trends, determine category role and position, and inform strategies and tactical plans for promotions, shelf placement, product assortment, and pricing within assigned categories.
• Develop recommendations for optimal product assortment for presentation to co-ops through the NCG Core Set and New Item programs, including core national and regional assortment, items to be de-listed and authorized, new item launch strategy and plans, exit strategies for unsuccessful products, suggested retail pricing, shelf-placement and category and item adjacencies, and category, brand, and segment space allocation.
• Develop annual promotional plans and strategies for all assigned categories and meet with key partners regularly to review business and evaluate, develop, and revise strategies and plans appropriate for NCG's programs and co-ops.
• Develop and implement pricing and margin strategies for NCG Promotions and EDLP programs within assigned categories.
• Analyze post-promotional data to determine optimal promotional vehicles, frequency, deal-depth, price points, seasonality/timing of promotion, and strategy.
• Set the promotional pricing strategy, pricing rules, and as necessary promotional pricing for assigned categories.

Essential Qualifications:
• B.S. or B.A. or minimum of 3 years' experience in retail merchandising, purchasing, category management, or a related field.
• Experience in developing relationships with sales representatives and brokers for brands or working as a brand or broker representative.
• Familiarity with the category management process and demonstrated experience applying category management.
• Familiarity with the health and wellness lifestyle, natural products industry, and buying behavior of health and wellness consumers.
• Demonstrated success in negotiations.
• Ability to design consumer-centric shelf plans and effective, visually-attractive promotional displays.
• Strong understanding of both high/low and EDLP pricing strategy.

Our people are our assets; we offer a generous salary and benefits package including 4 weeks PTO at hire, medical, dental, vision, company paid Life/ Disability/ Long Term Care insurance, HSA/FSA with company contribution, a matching 401K plan with profit sharing and much more.

Conveniently located between St. Paul and Minneapolis
2610 University Ave W, Suite 150 | St. Paul, MN 55114
Free Parking | Front Door Light Rail Station (Westgate - Green Line)

About NCG:
National Co+op Grocers (NCG), founded in 1999, is a business services cooperative for retail food co-ops located throughout the United States. We represent 147 food co-ops operating over 200 stores in 37 states with combined annual sales over $2 billion and over 1.3 million consumer-owners. NCG helps unify natural food co-ops in order to optimize operational and marketing resources, strengthen purchasing power, and ultimately offer more value to natural food co-op owners and shoppers everywhere. By providing a variety of purchasing, management, development, marketing and other services, our co-ops are able to gain many of the advantages large grocery chains enjoy, while still reflecting the unique qualities of their local communities. For a map of NCG member and associate co-ops, visit our Find-a-Co-op page. To learn more about co-ops, visit www.strongertogether.coop.

Apply By: September 27, 2018