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Category Director

Pet Circle

Pet Circle

Operations
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Posted 6+ months ago
At Pet Circle, we want to create a world where pets and their families are healthy, happy and spend more time together.
Over the past ten years, we’ve scaled to become one of Australia's Top 5 eCommerce companies and the No.1 player in the Online Pet industry. We will accelerate our growth as we continue on our mission to disrupt the way that pet parents discover and shop for the products they love.
The pet industry is booming (it’s a $15billion dollar industry!) and pets are holding bigger spaces in our hearts and homes than ever before. Online penetration of the pet industry is going to grow exponentially in the next 5 years. This is a unique opportunity in your career to be part of our exceptional growth story.
Founded and headquartered in Sydney, our team is now over 700 people strong and are based across Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
Role Responsibilities
Category Growth and Profitability
• Set goals for the category (alongside Chief Merchandising Officer) across revenue, margin, and inventory and break down to supplier and brand level.
• Develop go to market recommendations and strategies regarding assigned categories and cross promotions with other categories.
• Promote and make visible the ranges (brand/subcategory) that have most growth and margin opportunity.
• Optimise product catalogue by making decisions on what to expand and derange based on productivity (i.e. inventory value, SKU count, SOH turnover etc).
• Ultimately accountable for category outcomes including growth and profitability.
• Balance supplier strategy with Pet Circle’s private label category strategies and pursue opportunities within this space.
Team Management
• Coach, develop and lead a team of Category Managers and Category Associates, empowering them to deliver outcomes for the business.
• Mentor, train and develop your teams, providing opportunities to demonstrate strengths and improve. You’ll lead with context and vulnerability, sharing feedback and coaching to build future leaders and strong succession plans.
• Ensure the team are executing on category strategies, using the right tools and processes and guided by our Pet Circle playbooks.
• Maintain the prioritisation of your team as well as influence the prioritisation of cross-functional teams to ensure business objectives are met.
Supplier Relationship Management
• Build strategic partnerships with top tier suppliers, coaching and advising them on their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• Perform negotiations with Key Account Managers to secure investment and serve as a key escalation point for key decisions or issue resolution.
Market and Category Insights
• Play a leadership role in providing category management insights, analysing business issues, and providing business insights and recommendations in the areas of assortment, pricing, and promotion to improve business results.
• Own and manage weekly business review for your category, including definition and maintenance of key input metrics, output metrics, insights and actions.
• Develop impactful category analyses and consumer insights using a range of data sources to impact sales, including product placement recommendations.
• Identify opportunities for growth in category, including range, operational efficiencies, private label opportunities, and merchandising improvements - partnering with internal stakeholders to empower them with the information to then execute.
• Deeply understand customer and pet needs as it relates to your category and product range, bringing to life the selling proposition of each product by leveraging Pet Circle's merchandising toolkit.
Your Ideal Experience and Attributes
• Minimum of 8 years’ previous category or merchandising experience in a retail environment (online retail being a huge advantage).
• Solid understanding of relationship management contracts negotiation and contract management. Proven success establishing strong supplier partnerships, driving significant commercial outcomes and coaching your team to do the same.
• Experience building and executing category strategies and plans.
• Team leadership of at least 4 people in a merchandising, sales or category function with proven success delivering outcomes through others.
• Ability to cultivate team collaboration and support the evolution of business processes, continuous improvement, growth and profitability.
• Experience leading change, operating in ambiguity, and proven ability to adapt quickly in a rapidly evolving environment.
• Intellectually curious with imagination, backed up by strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated ownership of solving business problems, even when not squarely in your remit.
• You live the values that are aligned with our business; we’re pet-first, customer obsessed and are humble in our endeavours.
What Does Success Look Like?
• Growing margin dollars for your category
• Increasing active customer base
• Building capability beneath you and leading a high performing category team
You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position.
Role Location
At Pet Circle we believe that collaboration and team connection is key for success. This role will be based in Sydney with a blended working arrangement of 2+ days in our pet friendly city offices and the remainder working remotely.
Why Join?
We’re passionate about what we do and our love for pets is the centre of our why. Becoming a pawsome Pet Circler means you’re committed to help shape an entire industry - pretty exciting stuff! We’re a stable, innovative and low-ego group of people who relish challenges and aren’t afraid to do what’s right. Here’s what we stand for;
• We’re Better Together
• We operate with Humble Hearts and Hungry Minds
• We truly believe that Pets Matter; pets and pet parents always have a seat at our table
• We’re Instinctively Curious. Always
What else is in it for you?
• Pet Better with our generous employee discount, product sample giveaways and Pawrental leave for your furry family.
• We’re committed to flexibility and understand that it means different things to different people. For new parents, we offer generous leave for primary and secondary carers.
• Your wellbeing is non-negotiable. We seek to provide a collaborative, caring and safe environment, allowing you to present your full self each day. This includes things like Recharge Days and a discounted ClassPass subscription.
• A focus on you and your development - think learning tools, stretch projects, focus groups, secondments and other internal mobility opportunities!
• Join us on our animal welfare mission: we donate 10,000kg of pet food and supplies per month to pet shelters and support through our communities through team charity volunteer days.
At Pet Circle, candidate experience is of utmost importance. We have been recognised as a 2023 Circle Back Initiative Employer and we commit to responding to every application.
Belong at Pet Circle
Our unique expertise unites us to achieve our goal of helping pet parents, pet better. We value diversity in all forms and perspectives, always. Our global team are highly valued for all that they offer, we listen to each other and create a humble and inclusive environment for all to thrive. No matter your background, please apply if our roles ignite an excitement in you to bring your full self to work each day.