Merchandising Assistant

**About the role**:
Start your Merchandising career journey with us and work with the most iconic brands across home, fashion and technology. As an entry-level position to the Merchandising team, you’ll be joining an extremely experienced team of Partners who will provide all the tools and support you need to succeed and excel. Giving you the experience and skills needed to develop and move your career forward, at a pace that suits you.

As you settle into your new role you’ll be working across a wide range of product categories and the management of over £1,000,000s worth of stock a week. It’s a fast-paced environment with seasonal ebbs and flows and you’ll have the opportunity to work with many different product categories, all of which help you to gain the broadest experience possible.

**Where will I be based?**

Based at the John Lewis Head office in London, Victoria. This role does offer a blended working approach, with currently a minimum expectation of 2 days per week working within our Head Office.

**What will you be doing?**

As a Partner, you’ll have an active say in the way we operate, performing daily analysis around key operational areas (including stock flow and supplier availability) and proposing actions to support Trading activity:

- Forecasting will be key. Maintaining and adjusting forecasts at a product level using insight and analysis
- Raising & maintaining orders
- Raise orders with suppliers based on product level forecasts
- Moving orders to drive availability
- Chase late or missing orders
- Maximising availability and minimising out of stocks across all channels (branch and Online)
- Allocating stock to branch & Online to support promotions, marketing campaigns and new season launches
- Raising Rebates
- Building stakeholder relationships (Merchandisers, Buyers, external suppliers, distribution)
- Supporting Product Category Teams
- Identifying opportunities to drive trade
- Running & creating reports, with the analysis of sales and stock levels
- Monitoring & maintaining KPI’s
- Using a wide range of systems
- Please note, internally you will be known as Merchandising Operations Specialist

**What skills do you need to demonstrate?**
- An affinity with numbers and mathematical skills, with an analytical mind
- Advanced excel knowledge (using formulas)
- Ability to prioritise effectively and work well under pressure
- Able to build strong relationships with a range of stakeholders, and within your own team
- Strong commercial awareness about John Lewis Partnership and the wider retail industry
- Awareness of merchandising systems would be an advantage
- Accuracy and good attention to detail
- Proactive and uses initiative
- Excellent work ethic and ability to multitask, and able to manage own workload
- Enjoys learning new processes and systems, with Continuous improvement mindset - driving efficiencies

**Some of the many benefits of joining the Partnership**

After completion of you Earning Membership period you’ll be entitled to;
20% Discount at Waitrose & Partners on majority of goods

25% Discount at John Lewis & Partners on majority of goods

12% Discount at john Lewis & Partners on electrical & white goods

Defined contribution pension scheme and Life Assurance (4x annual salary)

22 days paid holiday per year, increasing to 25 after 5-years service.

Discounted holidays at our exclusive Partnerships hotels

VIP suites with discounted tickets at the O2 arena

Generous discounts at numerous restaurants and bars

For more information on the benefits we offer our Partners, click here.

**Application Advice**

Please note: Role internally is know as Merchandising Operations Specialist

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