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Apparel Category Manager - INTERNAL APPLICATIONS ONLY

Bury, England, United Kingdom

Role Overview:

Location: Northern Europe

Must be prepared to travel to European territories as well ad Bury HO. ​

Manage the consistent delivery of Visual Merchandising standard and performance throughout your category, driving the strategy set out by the business on your specific department by producing visual and commercial direction in the form of VM directives. You will be responsible to actively manage your relationships with cross functional departments to ensure the category you oversea is delivering business expectations and vision. You will endeavour to exceed goals set by the Head office team, supporting them in the implementation of business and local initiatives and providing an effective communication platform between Head office global teams , departments and stores in order to achieve the highest level of visual merchandising and profitability across all stores exceeding KPI’s set by your line manager. 

 

Key Role and Responsibilities:​

  • Work within the Central Visual merchandising department to coordinate all category visual direction and communication this out to all stores.​
  • Ensure the performance of your category is successful through the implementation of store layouts, composition, commerciality and this is relevant for the market or region.​
  • Work fluidly with cross functional departments to ensure new incentives, retail opportunities are captured and pre planned to create a precise execution and maximise sales.​
  • Produce the weekly VM directive, providing an engaging document that is clear and concise.​
  • Enhance your department visually in the form of new fixtures and development of concepts.​
  • Apply effective and sustainable solutions to Visual issues.​
  • Work with brands to ensure JD is at the forefront of marketplace development and forecast and refit programmes.​
  • Recognise and reflect local trends and influences whilst maintaining corporate identity within your category.​
  • Planning of new stores and imminent refits to ensure your category is layed out and has the correct fixtures and fittings.​
  • Track the sales performance of your category in order to identify opportunities and provide direction.

 

Communication & Vision:

  • Provide an effective and fluid network of communication between Head office, Field Team and Line Manager.​
  • The communication of new ideas and initiatives to promote the ongoing development of JD.​
  • Maintain and develop organisational culture, values and reputation.​
  • Conduct weekly meetings with Field VM Teams and Senior Management to ensure a clear direction is being presented.​
  • Provide clear and constructive feedback at all times.​
  • Feedback reports to be complete after any retail visits, providing a clear summary of actions.

People & Talent:

  • Contribute to the design and delivery of Visual training documents.​
  • Work with the field team to develop their skills within visual merchandising.​
  • Actively communicate with your line manager any training requirements needed to help further develop you within your role. ​

 

Travel and Movments

  • Manage your movements accordingly with business activity in mind.​
  • Movements should be planned and approved with your line manager.​
  • Expectation is to spend a percentage of time office based, with the rest visiting your respective markets.​
  • You are required to support new store openings which will require travel and periodic stays away.​
  • Visit stores on a regular basis ensuring stores are commercially and visually correct and are apply all direction.​
  • To spend at least 40% of times in territories. 

Personal Conduct

  • Conduct yourself in a professional manner at all times.​
  • Employ the highest possible interpersonal skills in order to ensure the successful marketing of the department.

 

The Company:

The JD Group is a leading omnichannel retailer of Sports Fashion, Street & Premium Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with over 60,000 colleagues over 3,400 stores across several retail fascia's in over 30 markets around the world.

We are an equal opportunities employer who embraces and values differences. We recognise the importance of an inclusive workplace culture in which everyone can thrive irrespective of their background or identity.

To be a part of this successful and continuously growing company, you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people first, a digital leader and customer focused organisation which provides operational excellence and is continuous with identifying new areas of growth into our day-to-day.

We know our employees work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits:

  • Incremental Holiday Allowance
  • Staff Discount on qualifying purchases across Group retail stores and online
  • Exclusive Colleague Bike Discount scheme
  • Discounted Gym membership
  • Personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work
  • Access to Apprenticeships and accredited qualifications

Interested?

If you are interested in this position, then press the Apply Now button.

Due to the high volumes of applications our opportunities attract, it takes time to review them all. If you don't hear back within two weeks of your application, please consider your application to have been unsuccessful on this occasion

Applications that meet the skills criteria will be contacted for a 1st stage meeting with the talent team. Shortlisted candidates will then be invited to interview with the hiring manager.

Thank you again for your time.

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