Merchant, General Merchandise and Food in Princeton, New Jersey at The Princeton University Store

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.
This is not a traditional reorder buyer role. We are looking for a commercially strong, operationally grounded merchant who can manage the daily discipline of food, freshness, replenishment, vendor follow-up, and inventory control while also repositioning the business for stronger relevance, growth, and customer engagement.
The right candidate will bring both structure and imagination: the ability to improve what exists today, identify what should change, and develop new categories, vendors, space, service, and partnership opportunities that make our on-campus store more useful, more current, and more compelling for students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and visitors.
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, in-stock 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 long-standing vendor relationships while introducing new partners and more modern ways of working.
What We Are Looking For
A merchant who is practical, curious, commercially credible, and comfortable working in a business that is evolving. The successful candidate will be able to operate with urgency on today’s business while also helping define what this business can become next.
The ideal candidate brings experience in some combination of:
• Food, beverage, grocery, convenience, specialty retail, and general merchandise
• Category management, buying, merchandising, inventory planning, and vendor management
• Replenishment discipline, open-to-buy management, SKU lifecycle management, and sales analysis
• Vendor negotiation, distributor management, and assortment development
• Retail environments where operational execution matters as much as product selection
• Data-informed decision-making using ERP, inventory, and retail reporting systems
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.