Description Non Food - Central Merchandise Assistant Why join us Joining our Merchandise team as a Central Merchandise Assistant presents a fantastic opportunity for growth and career advancement. As we embark on an exciting new project, you'll have endless possibilities to shape your career path and explore various avenues for development. If you thrive on challenges and enjoy improving processes, this role is perfect for you. You'll have the chance to work closely with the Central Merchandise Manager, supporting stock flow and planning activities, conducting analysis, and contributing to the successful execution of category strategies. With a keen eye for detail, strong analytical skills, and a desire to learn and grow, you'll be part of a dynamic team that values process compliance, data integrity, and cross-functional collaboration. We provide a supportive and flexible work environment, allowing you to achieve a work-life balance while making significant contributions to our business goals. What you'll do Joining our Central Merchandise team as a Central Merchandise Assistant, you will play a crucial role in supporting the Central Merchandise Manager with various tasks, including creating and distributing stock flow and stock planning reports, conducting analysis, and facilitating the realisation of category strategies across General Merchandise. You will act as a linkage between Commercial and Operational Planning, building cross-functional relationships, analysing forecasts, and identifying potential operational challenges. With your planning and organisational skills, you will meet milestones, contribute to best practices, and support the development and delivery of key objectives. Your attention to detail, analytical skills, and eagerness to learn will be instrumental in your success in this role. Who you are As a Central Merchandise Assistant, you are a highly motivated and detail-oriented professional with a passion for improving processes and driving category strategies in General Merchandise. With your strong analytical skills and attention to detail, you support the Central Merchandise Manager in the creation and distribution of stock flow and planning reports, ensuring accurate and timely information for key trading meetings. Your ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels allows you to build cross-functional relationships and collaborate effectively with commercial and operational planning teams. With your experience in retail planning principles and merchandising systems, along with your proficiency in Excel, you contribute to the development of best practises and drive data integrity and process compliance. Your desire to learn and grow in your role positions you for endless opportunities for career progression in the exciting field of merchandising. Responsibilities We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. From fragrance to car care, clothing and pots and pans, our General Merchandise team delivers all the non-food items for Sainsbury’s, Habitat and Argos customers. This multi-brand environment means you get to work across most areas. You can also be a pioneer, because the team believes in being brave, iterating and learning as they go. They also develop deep connections to other departments, which opens up a lot of different career opportunities for you. What’s certain is that you’ll spend time on the shop floor to get closer to customers, and bring a broad perspective and the full support of your manager with you wherever you decide to develop next. Qualifications We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 5% of salary, depending on how we perform. Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme. Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply). Please note, due to the volume of applications we receive, our roles may close early.