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One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around!

HARRY’S COMMENTS: I’m working with Dollar Tree in their search for a Director of Site Merchandising based in Chesapeake, Virginia — just 20 minutes by car from Virginia Beach.

Before you dive into the details of this ecommerce job, please note that this position requires relocation. This is a brand new, strategic, high-visibility position, and there is no remote or partial WFH option for this role. The good news is that you will live just down the road from here …

About Dollar Tree

With $25.5 billion in sales, Dollar Tree operates discount variety stores (a great business, btw) through two brands: Dollar Tree and Family Dollar.

Its Dollar Tree stores offer merch at a fixed price of ONE DOLLAR, including candy, snacks, personal care products, household paper and cleaners, frozen and refrigerated foods, toys, gifts, stationery, school and party supplies — plus seasonal goods for Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc.

It’s like putting the top-turning SKUs at a Walmart in a retail footprint not much bigger than a large convenience store.

The firm operates 7,805 stores under its Dollar Tree and Dollar Tree Canada brands, along with 26 distribution centers in the United States plus 2 in Canada.

Its Family Dollar concept operates 7,880 general merchandise retail discount stores that offer consumable merchandise such as food and beverages, tobacco, personal care items, household chemicals, paper products, basic hardware and automotive supplies, diapers, batteries, and pet food — plus home products, such as housewares, home décor items, and soft goods like comforters, sheets, and towels.

Similar playbook, different brand: A merchant’s paradise.

The firm’s websites already get a MASSIVE amount of traffic, and there’s incredible potential to build a very large ecommerce business in the consumer and SMB markets on the back of proven omnichannel strategies like BOPIS and ship-from-store (although these are just the tip of the iceberg).

About the Role

Last year, Dollar Tree hired a new SVP, of Digital whose charge is to take DT’s ecom business to the next level. Having worked with this exec as both a candidate and a client, I can assure you that he’s world-class.

As Dollar Tree’s new Director of Site Merchandising, you will be responsible for partnering with the firm’s Buying and Inventory teams to 1/ develop online category and visual merchandising strategies, 2/ manage the online assortment, and 3/ optimize the ecom channel’s inventory, promotional and marketing support functions.

Unlike most ecom merchants, Management will expect you to develop and execute business plans to drive growth in ecommerce while also digitally influencing retail store sales. That means you will be working cross-functionally to devise and deliver an integrated shopping experience for BOTH brands (Dollar Tree and Family Dollar).

Although you’ll be providing valuable guidance on growing the business, you won’t be expected to build out the actual omnichannel capabilities. You’ll be expected to have a teachable POV on shopper attitudes (example) and how different retail marketing vehicles (example) might influence shopper behaviors — but DT’s Product Management team will drive feature development, and its Ops team will oversee fulfillment.

You won’t believe how much we know about this search …

I spent a ton of time on the phone with the client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include …

1. The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
2. The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every ecommerce job has these — and this one’s no different.
3. What your average day/week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard ecommerce job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
4. The leading and lagging KPIs that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you’ll keep score.
5. The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this ecommerce job.

I have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. My industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Harry Joiner, at (404) 281-2025 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.

View Harry Joiner’s profile

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead development of merchandising strategy, category management and product content processes.
• Ensure timely and quality execution of digital campaigns through web development team.
• Develop and maintain online assortment guidelines that align with the merchandising strategy.
• Responsible for attaining online sales and margin goals, as well as providing online support to stores.
• Develop a strategic assortment plan working collaboratively with buying and planning teams.
• Identify opportunities for online assortment expansion and testing for the company.
• Monitor business performance, and communicate assortment, promotional and inventory needs.
• Drive results by improving taxonomy, navigation, site search and product details.
• Responsible for visual merchandising of all vertical, category, sub-category and themed pages.
• Partner cross-functionally to optimize marketing campaigns.
• Work with creative services, marketing, product management, fulfillment and operations teams to execute flawlessly.
• Build and strengthen relationships with Dollar Tree and Family Dollar Merchandising teams (buying, inventory, etc.)
• Manage, coach, develop, mentor and evaluate the digital merchandising team.

Minimum Requirements / Qualifications

• Bachelors’ degree or higher in Business Administration or related field
• Minimum 10 years online merchandising experience within a multichannel environment
• 3+ years in a management or leadership role