Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Assistant Merchandiser

🎯 Role Definition

The Assistant Merchandiser supports the Merchandising team to drive profitable assortments, maintain optimal inventory levels, and execute merchandising strategies across channels. This role combines data-driven analysis, vendor coordination, purchasing administration, and cross-functional collaboration with merchandising, planning, marketing, and operations teams to ensure on-time product availability, accurate pricing, compelling displays, and exceptional promotional performance.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Merchandising Coordinator or Merchandising Intern with hands-on exposure to inventory and PO administration
Retail Buyer Assistant or Junior Planner working on replenishment and basic forecasting
Sales Support or Inventory Analyst transitioning into merchandise operations

Advancement To:

Merchandiser / Junior Buyer (1–2 years)
Merchandise Planner or Category Manager (2–4 years)
Senior Buyer / Head of Merchandising or Product Director (4+ years)

Lateral Moves:

Retail Planning / Demand Planning
Product/Category Management
E-commerce Merchandising and Digital Merchandising

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Support the Buying team by preparing and managing purchase orders (POs), ensuring accurate product details, quantities, costs, delivery windows and carrier requirements to meet seasonal assortment plans and store allocations.
Monitor inventory levels daily and implement replenishment recommendations based on sales velocity, safety stock thresholds, shrinkage trends, and lead-time variability to minimize out-of-stocks and overstocks.
Analyze weekly and monthly sales performance by SKU, category and channel using Excel, Google Sheets, or business intelligence tools; prepare clear, actionable reports with recommendations for price, promotion, and assortment adjustments.
Collaborate with vendors and suppliers to confirm production schedules, resolve quality issues, track sample approvals, and expedite critical shipments to align with promotional calendars and seasonal launches.
Assist in assortment planning by compiling historical sell-through data, trend insights, and competitive benchmarks to recommend SKU rationalization, new product placement, and regionalized allocations.
Execute markdown strategies and promotional pricing mechanics by modeling margin impact, forecasting promotional uplift, and coordinating with pricing and operations teams to apply timely adjustments.
Maintain and update master data for products, including attributes, UPCs, dimensions, images, and item descriptions within PLM/PIM systems and the merchandising database to ensure omnichannel consistency.
Support seasonal floor sets and planogram execution by producing planogram data, store-level allocations, and fixture requirements in partnership with Visual Merchandising and Store Operations teams.
Assist with vendor negotiations related to lead times, MOQs, payment terms, and freight options by gathering cost analyses and supporting the Buyer in decision-making to improve margin and inventory turns.
Coordinate closely with Digital Merchandising by supplying accurate product feed information, SEO-oriented product titles and descriptions, imagery, and launch dates to optimize online conversion and search visibility.
Manage purchase order amendments, returns authorizations and claims by liaising with Logistics, Quality Assurance and Finance to secure credits, replacements or carrier claims as required.
Work with Marketing and Trade Marketing to operationalize promotional calendars, ensuring product availability, correct pricing, and creative assets are synchronized across stores and digital channels.
Implement basic demand forecasting models and collaborate with Planners on seasonality adjustments, promotional elasticity and trend-driven order patterns to reduce forecast error and improve fill rates.
Track key merchandising KPIs (sell-through, gross margin, stock turn, average unit retail (AUR), markdowns) and prepare executive-level summaries and deep-dive analyses to inform leadership decisions.
Participate in new product introductions (NPIs) by coordinating sample flows, build-to-stock recommendations, sell-in cadence, and training materials for store teams and account managers.
Perform SKU-level profitability analysis that includes landed cost, freight, tariffs and distribution center handling to ensure accurate margin planning and pricing decisions.
Support pack size and assortment optimization by analyzing size profiles and returns to propose size-ratio adjustments and refine replenishment logic for stores and e-commerce.
Ensure compliance with corporate merchandising policies, trade compliance regulations, and accurate cut-off dates for seasonal and promotional campaigns.
Build and maintain strong cross-functional relationships with Supply Chain, Finance, Store Operations, Product Development, and Marketing to ensure smooth go-to-market execution and product lifecycle management.
Run competitive scans and market intelligence, sourcing trend reports and pricing comparisons to identify whitespace opportunities and inform private-label or exclusive assortment decisions.
Maintain rigorous documentation of decisions, approvals, and vendor correspondence to support audits, supplier scorecards and continuous improvement initiatives.
Drive process improvement projects in merchandising workflows (e.g., PO automation, EDI adoption, exception handling) to increase operational efficiency and reduce manual errors.
Provide daily support on ad-hoc merchandising requests including urgent replenishment, product recalls, pricing corrections and mid-season business pivots to minimize sales disruption.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist with training materials and knowledge transfer for merchandising systems and tools to onboard new hires and cross-functional partners.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced Excel & Google Sheets: pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, nested formulas, and charting for merchandising analysis.
Retail analytics and BI tools experience: Power BI, Tableau, Looker, or similar for dashboards and KPI monitoring.
Merchandising systems familiarity: Oracle Retail, JDA/Magento, SAP MM, Infor, Blue Yonder, or other PIM/PLM/ERP platforms.
Experience preparing and managing Purchase Orders (POs), EDI transactions and PO lifecycle administration.
Basic SQL knowledge for extracting and manipulating sales and inventory datasets (SELECT, JOIN, GROUP BY, WHERE).
Forecasting and replenishment fundamentals, including safety stock, lead-time calculation, and demand planning logic.
Pricing and markdown modeling, margin analysis and contribution-to-profit calculations.
Planogram software and visual merchandising principles; understanding of space planning and fixture productivity.
Familiarity with e-commerce product feed optimization, SEO-friendly product copywriting, and digital catalog management.
Vendor and supplier management skills including purchase negotiations, lead-time tracking, and quality escalation.
Data hygiene and master data management: SKU attributes, UPC verification, taxonomy governance and PIM updates.
Knowledge of retail math (GMROI, stock turn, sell-through, AUR) and the ability to translate metrics into business actions.
Experience with ticketing systems, returns processing, and claims management workflows.
Basic project management skills: timeline creation, stakeholder coordination, and status reporting.

Soft Skills

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a commercial mindset for translating data into actionable merchandising decisions.
Excellent written and verbal communication, able to present insights to buyers, planners, and senior stakeholders.
Highly organized with exceptional attention to detail and ability to manage multiple product launches and POs simultaneously.
Collaborative team player who builds trust across cross-functional departments and external suppliers.
Time management and prioritization skills to support fast-paced seasonal cycles and urgent replenishment needs.
Adaptability and resilience in a retail environment that responds to changing consumer trends and supply chain disruption.
Negotiation and persuasion skills when coordinating with vendors and internal stakeholders to achieve commercial outcomes.
Customer-centric orientation with a good sense of product aesthetics and consumer buying behavior.
Proactive mindset and continuous improvement orientation with a focus on process automation and operational excellence.
Ethical judgement and compliance awareness in supplier dealings, data handling and pricing practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Associate degree or Diploma in Retail, Business, Fashion Merchandising or Supply Chain with 1–2 years of relevant experience; OR
High-performing candidates with a Bachelor's degree and internships/entry-level merchandising experience.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, Fashion Merchandising, Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, or a related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Fashion Merchandising
Retail Management
Business Administration
Supply Chain Management / Logistics
Marketing
Textile Science / Product Development
Economics or Statistics (helpful for analytics-focused roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 1–3 years of merchandising, retail buying support, inventory planning, or e-commerce product operations.

Preferred: 2–4 years of direct merchandising support experience within apparel, footwear, accessories, or home goods; demonstrated use of merchandising systems, Excel-driven analysis, and exposure to vendor management and promotions.