Michael Sides

● Manage relationships with over 35 vendors, assisting with all clerical and business related inquiries as well as onboard all new prospective vendors

● Schedule vendor meetings during category resets, ensuring that all vendors are coordinated, locations are established, and all attendees are invited

● Own the promotional process which involves working collaboratively with vendors on their submissions, reviewing and providing recommendations to leadership, working cross-functionally with internal support teams, and notifying vendors of awarded promotions.

● Analyze weekly and monthly financials to provide insights on competitive pricing, effects of marketing on promotions, and regional activity

● Maintain item data integrity ranging from costs to item descriptions ensuring a positive shopping experience for both in-store and online customers as well as improving reporting

● Hold vendors accountable with regular follow-ups to help drive margin improvement by processing over $10 million in promotional funding for the category

● Utilize understanding of business regionality to maintain complete accuracy for more than 400 items in 1700+ stores

● Review any recent cost changes, promotional activity, and funding to update slides and presenting my findings during the team’s weekly Business Review, following up with the respective cross-functional team to correct any issues

● Lead cost trainings and assist in the development of training materials for new hires focused on merchandising best practices and company policies

● Join select small group of Merchants and Merchandising Analysts as a Subject Matter Expert for Item Maintenance, working to improve merchandising efficiency

● Create and manage department resource tools to ensure integrity of quoted projects as product and industry standards change

● Prepare weekly and monthly reporting that is shared with both Department management as well as Regional Field management

● Co-own departmental inbox working cooperatively to delegate requests to the appropriate teams and team members

● Monitor a workload queue and ensure that team members maintain a minimum number of projects at all times with schedules in mind

● Responsible for maintaining in-stock levels, complete weekly promotional activity, and execute planogram updates to align with overall business strategy

● Review assigned items financials to prioritize replenishment and drive customer engagement

● Manage back-end stock room to ensure a safe and efficient workflow

● Trained and supervised junior team members in visual merchandising techniques for consistent brand presentation across the store