Merchant, General Merchandise and Food

About The Role

The Princeton University Store is seeking a Merchant, General Merchandise, and Food to lead and modernize an important area of our business. This role owns a broad portfolio of categories, including food, beverage, health and beauty, stationery and school supplies, dorm essentials, technology accessories, prepared and ready-to-eat food, and related general merchandise.

What You Will Do

• Lead the General Merchandise and Food Business
  Own merchandising strategy and business performance for assigned food and general merchandise categories.

• Build annual, seasonal, and monthly category plans that support sales, margin, inventory, and customer engagement goals.

• Use sales data, customer insights, competitive awareness, and vendor knowledge to make informed assortment decisions.

• Manage a category portfolio that may evolve over time as business needs and opportunities change.

• Strengthen and Reposition the Food Business
  Improve the food, beverage, grab-and-go, and convenience assortment with stronger attention to freshness, quality, relevance, service, and customer expectations.

• Preserve what is working while identifying underperforming categories, vendors, and programs that require change.

• Balance everyday consumer needs with more contemporary, better-for-you, comfort-driven, and experience-oriented food and beverage offerings.

• Partner closely with operations to ensure food execution works in real life, including storage, equipment, replenishment, stock flow, aging, and presentation.

• Drive Daily Execution and Merchandising Discipline
  Maintain strong daily and weekly routines for purchase orders, replenishment, instock position, vendor follow-up, waste, and category exceptions.

• Protect the business from avoidable stockouts, overstocks, quality issues, missed sales, and weak follow-through.

• Improve repeatable processes so the business depends less on undocumented knowledge and more on clear routines, data, and accountability.

• Use NetSuite and related tools to support SKU management, replenishment, open-to-buy discipline, reporting, and business review.

• Develop New Category and Business Opportunities
  Identify adjacent categories, new vendors, partnerships, services, and experiential concepts that can increase customer engagement and improve space productivity.

• Evaluate underutilized or underperforming areas of the on-campus location and recommend practical ways to improve revenue, relevance, and customer experience.

• Build commercially grounded recommendations that include customer rationale, product logic, operational implications, and expected business impact.

• Collaborate with the CEO and cross-functional partners to move promising concepts from idea to execution.

• Lead Vendor and Distributor Relationships
  Build strong, productive relationships with distributors, manufacturers, and service providers.

• Improve pricing, terms, service expectations, promotional support, inventory flow, and vendor accountability.

• Document vendor economics, including discounts, incentives, purchasing requirements, service commitments, and other margin or continuity factors.

• Balance continuity with change by improving longstanding vendor relationships while introducing new partners and more modern ways of working.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in merchandising, business, finance, retail management, or a related field.

• 7+ years of experience in retail buying, category management, merchandising, grocery, convenience, specialty retail, or related consumer product environments.

• Experience managing food, beverage, grocery, convenience, dorm, stationery, school supply, health and beauty, technology accessory, or general merchandise categories.

• Strong vendor management and negotiation skills.

• Strong analytical skills and comfort using sales, inventory, margin, and customer data to make decisions.

• Experience with NetSuite required for demand planning, inventory, purchase orders, planning, and reporting.

• Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

• Ability to work in a hands-on, evolving retail environment with both strategic and daily operating responsibilities.

Evaluation Criteria

• Demonstrated evidence in the following areas:

• Managing food, grocery, convenience, specialty retail, or general merchandise categories with both daily operating requirements and longer-term growth potential.

• Using sales, margin, inventory, replenishment, and vendor data to make practical merchandising decisions.

• Improving vendor relationships, pricing, terms, service levels, and inventory flow.

• Managing recurring purchase orders, replenishment routines, SKU lifecycle, open-to-buy discipline, and category performance reviews.

• Partnering with store operations to ensure that assortment decisions can be executed effectively through storage, equipment, fixtures, labor, and selling-floor presentation.

• Identifying new products, services, vendors, spaces, or partnership opportunities that are commercially grounded and operationally realistic.

• Working in an environment that requires both hands-on execution and business-building judgment.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit a resume and a brief note outlining relevant experience in merchandising, buying, food, grocery, convenience, or general merchandise.