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Category Manager, Garden Lifestyle
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Category Manager, Garden Lifestyle in Overland Park, Kansas at Overland Park Garden Center
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Job Description
Category manager, GARDEN LIFESTYLE
Employment Type: Full Time, Exempt
Location: Kansas City, KS – In Person
Travel: Regular travel to retail locations, product markets, and trade events
Who We Are
Family Tree Nursery started in 1964 when the Nelson family decided to take a chance on a small, bankrupt garden center in Overland Park. Six decades later, Family Tree Nursery is one of the top garden centers in the nation — three retail locations, two growing facilities, and a team of passionate horticulturalists who take great pride in what they grow and sell.
We are still family-owned and locally operated. We grow a significant portion of what we sell right here in Kansas City. We know our guests by name. And we believe that connecting people to plants, to beauty, and to one another is work worth doing well.
We are also in the middle of a meaningful transformation — modernizing our operations, building our team, and putting the structure in place that will carry this business confidently into its next 60 years. This role is critical to that work.
The RoleThe Category Manager, Garden Lifestyle is responsible for the product strategy, vendor relationships, seasonal buying plan, merchandising standards, and sell-through performance of Family Tree Nursery's Home Décor, Pottery, traditional Garden Center, and Christmas categories across all retail locations. This role decides what products will be carried within those categories — from which vendors, at which price point, and in what quantities.
This role requires detail-oriented, data-driven, and creative work. You’ll spend the majority of your time setting our locations up for success — analyzing inventory and sales data, managing vendors, and placing orders. You'll be planning and communicating the product’s lifecycle from arrival through replenishment and exit. You'll attend markets, visit showrooms, and build partnerships that give Family Tree Nursery access to products that are distinctive, effective, on-trend, and worthy of the brand we've built.
Family Tree Nursery is a top garden center in the United States. The quality and curation of our Garden Lifestyle experience is a meaningful part of what makes our stores a destination — not just a place to buy plants. This role is responsible for protecting and advancing that standard.
You'll THRIVE in This role if...- You've walked into a boutique, done a full lap, and come out knowing exactly what they're buying well, what they're missing, and what they're over-indexed on.
- You take it personally when something doesn't sell. You've pulled a product, repositioned a display, renegotiated a reorder, and proven yourself right the second time around. The sell-through report isn't a formality to you. It's the scoreboard — and you check it.
- You've built a relationship with a vendor, a rep, or a maker whose work you believed in before anyone else did — and when their stuff started showing up everywhere, you weren't surprised. You were already onto the next thing.
- Every time you walk into Family Tree Nursery, you feel something. You recognize the connection to place, to beauty, to a business that has meant something to this community for 60 years — and you don't just want to shop here. You want to help build what it becomes next.
- Develop and execute a category buying strategy across five planning cycles — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Christmas — managing the full arc from early commitment through post-season exit strategy
- Build and manage a tiered assortment strategy with differentiated vendors, price points, and product mix by store location — informed by market trends, guest insights, and qualitative employee inputs
- Apply the company's pricing framework, margin targets, and open-to-buy budgets to make confident buying decisions
- Track and report on category performance across all retail locations — sell-through rates, gross margin, inventory turn, weeks of supply, and seasonal trend analysis — presenting to [Manager Title] on a defined cadence
- Monitor inventory health across all locations — identifying imbalances, underperforming products, and end-of-season exposure early, and making proactive recommendations on markdowns, inter-store transfers, or discontinuation to protect margin and keep product moving
- Collaborate with cross-functional team members when sourcing and evaluating new partners and emerging categories, taking calculated risks when warranted
- Own vendor relations end-to-end including terms, performance, negotiating pricing, delivery schedules, quality standards, and issue resolution
- Represent Family Tree Nursery at gift markets, trade shows, and showroom appointments — researching trends, visiting vendors, and staying ahead of what guests will want next season.
- Maintain accurate vendor records and communicate all sourcing decisions through the centralized procurement process
- Travel to all retail locations on a regular cadence to review category performance, assess product presentation, and partner with Garden Center Department Managers on execution — providing honest, constructive feedback, coordinating on inventory imbalances and inter-store transfers, and escalating persistent gaps to the Location Manager
- Lead seasonal planning meetings with cross-functional team members to align on product strategy, promotional priorities, and what's coming next — including product arrival timing, display direction, and tiered assortment by location
- Develop and distribute a seasonal merchandising brief for each planning cycle — including themes, inspiration photos, A/B/C spot product recommendations by location tier, and the product knowledge and vendor stories store leadership needs to educate and equip their teams. Specific enough that execution is consistent, flexible enough that each store still feels alive and curated
- Document and archive what works across all locations — building a company-wide Garden Lifestyle merchandising standard that can be referenced, repeated, and improved over time
- Collaborate with Marketing on signage, promotional materials, and any guest-facing communication as needed
- 3–5 years of experience in retail buying, merchandising, home decor, garden center, interior design, gift market sourcing, or a closely adjacent field
- A demonstrated point of view on home décor, gifts, and seasonal trends with the ability to articulate why a product belongs in a Family Tree Nursery store
- Proven experience creating and executing merchandising plans, managing vendor relationships, and analyzing retail performance metrics to inform buying decisions
- Hands-on experience with purchase order creation and vendor management — a demonstrated understanding of the full commercial cycle from product selection through sell-through
- Comfort with retail performance metrics — able to read a sell-through report, calculate open-to-buy, and use data to make confident buying decisions
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, as well as point-of-sale systems and retail inventory management tools
- Strong communication skills across a range of audiences — vendor reps, retail teams, and senior leadership
- A valid driver's license and willingness to travel regularly to all locations, trade shows, and showroom appointments by vehicle or air travel
- Ability to stand and walk for extended periods during store visits and trade shows; occasional lifting up to 50 lbs.
Job descriptions are written for the ideal — and the ideal candidate rarely exists on paper, exactly as described. If this role sounds like you, but you don't check every box, apply anyway. We care far more about how you think, what you've built, and whether you genuinely love this kind of work than we do about your resume hitting every line item
This is a salaried, exempt role. We measure success by category performance, vendor relationships, and whether the stores have what they need when they need it. Our business is highly seasonal. Spring and Christmas buying cycles are demanding, and the expectation is that you bring the same intensity to your schedule that the season demands.
Family Tree Nursery is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve and the values we hold.