Director of Merchandising

Description

Job Description – Director of Merchandising

Reports To: VP of E-Commerce 

Location: Chico, CA Headquarters - open to remote for the right candidate

Position Summary

The Director of Merchandising leads the strategic transformation and day-to-day operation of AMain.com's merchandising, product content, third-party marketplace, and visual merchandising functions. This role is accountable for re-architecting the legacy Copywriting department into two purpose-built teams—Product Data and Merchandising—and elevating Photography into a true Visual Merchandising discipline. 

Reporting to the VP of E-Commerce, the Director will partner closely with the broader E-Commerce, Reporting, and Inventory/Supply Chain teams to drive site conversion, marketplace growth, catalog quality, and a best-in-class customer product experience across AMain's owned digital properties and third-party channels. 

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN & TRANSFORMATION

• Department transformation: Lead the transition of the existing Copywriting department into two distinct, purpose-built functions: a Product Data team focused on catalog quality and a Merchandising team focused on commercial outcomes. 
• Visual merchandising evolution: Reimagine the current Photography function as a Visual Merchandising team responsible for product imagery, lifestyle and video assets, and on-site visual storytelling. 
• Roles & RACI: Redefine roles, responsibilities, workflows, and decision rights across all four teams; document new SOPs and handoffs with E-Commerce, Inventory, and Marketing. 
• Change management: Lead the people side of the transformation—communication, coaching, role mapping, and retention—so the change lands well with the existing team. 
• Org build-out: Partner with HR on leveling, comp structure, and career paths for the newly defined functions.

PRODUCT DATA & CATALOG MANAGEMENT

• Data standards documentation: Build and maintain a product data style guide — title formula, description requirements, required attributes by product type, and image standards. This is the rulebook every person who touches product data works from. 
• Data quality & governance: Own product data quality, taxonomy, attribution, and cross-channel content standards across AMain.com and third-party marketplaces. 
• PIM strategy: Set the long-term Product Information Management strategy and operating model; partner with IT/Engineering on tooling decisions and integrations. 
• New item onboarding: Establish and hold SLAs for time-to-publish on new items, ensuring accurate attribution and complete content at launch. 
• Catalog completeness: Drive measurable improvements in coverage of required attributes, imagery, copy, and category mapping across the existing catalog. 

ONSITE MERCHANDISING

• Site experience: Drive performance of category pages, PDPs, search, navigation, and on-site recommendations to grow conversion, AOV, and attach rate. 
• Promotional execution: Plan and execute on-site promotions, hero placements, and category storytelling that align with inventory position and margin goals. 
• Test & learn: Build a disciplined merchandising test-and-learn agenda with the E-Commerce team to continuously improve commercial outcomes. 
• Measurement baseline: Establish baseline metrics for category conversion rate, search conversion rate, zero-result rate, and filter usage. Every merchandising decision after that is evaluated against these baselines. 

THIRD-PARTY MARKETPLACES

• Channel leadership: Oversee the Manager of Third-Party Marketplaces and set strategy across Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and other relevant channels. 
• Listings & content: Own listing quality, content syndication, A+/Enhanced Brand Content, and channel-specific merchandising standards. 
• Channel economics: Partner with Finance and Inventory on channel margin, fee management, and FBA/MCF/3PL allocation decisions. 
• Growth & expansion: Identify and prioritize new channel, program, and geographic opportunities aligned with AMain's strategic plan. 

VISUAL MERCHANDISING

• Creative standards: Set and enforce creative standards for product photography, lifestyle imagery, and video across the catalog and brand. 
• Studio operations: Drive studio throughput, shot productivity, and cost-per-asset; build the production calendar against new-item flow and merchandising priorities. 
• Brand alignment: Align visual output with brand strategy, category positioning, and the broader site experience. 
• Shot list standard: Define a required shot list per product type — white background hero, front-on, scale reference, in-use/lifestyle, and what's-in-the-box. The goal is images that answer customer questions before they ask them, not just consistent angles. 

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

• Inventory & supply chain: Work closely with Shawn Ireland’s team on inventory health, sell-through, OOS recovery, and overstock plans—ensuring merchandising decisions reflect the true inventory position. 
• Marketing alignment: Coordinate with Marketing on storytelling, campaign assets, vendor co-op execution, and on-site/off-site alignment. 
• E-Commerce & Dev: Serve as primary product owner for merchandising-related development work translating business needs (sort logic, schema, category architecture) into clear technical requirements. 

SEO & Discoverability

• Organic discoverability: Own or directly partner on AMain's organic search performance ensuring product data, category structure, and schema markup translate to discoverability, not just on-site conversion. 
• Structured data (schema): Ensure product, breadcrumb, review, and organization schema is implemented correctly and comprehensively. AMain's rich results are a competitive advantage protect and expand them. 
• Search Console monitoring: Own or assign daily monitoring of Google Search Console across all sites — indexing health, rich result errors, crawl anomalies, and CTR performance. 
• Competitive discoverability: Maintain awareness of how AMain ranks vs. key competitors on target product queries and use this to prioritize content and category work. 

Requirements

• 8-10+ years of e-commerce merchandising experience with progressive leadership responsibility 
• 3+ years leading multi-team or multi-function organizations at the manager-of-managers level 
• Demonstrated third-party marketplace experience (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, or comparable channels), including listings, content, and channel economics 
• Hands-on experience with PIM systems, product data governance, taxonomy, and attribution 
• Visual merchandising, studio, or creative direction experience—either as a direct discipline owner or through close partnership with a creative team 
• Proven success leading organizational change: redesigning roles, evolving teams, and managing the people side of transformation 
• Strong commercial and analytical fluency; comfort owning a P&L or P&L-adjacent KPI set 
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience 

DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• Background in hobby, specialty retail, enthusiast, or category-led businesses 
• Data-driven decision maker who sets clear scorecards and operates against them 
• Strong cross-functional collaborator—able to influence E-Commerce, Inventory, Marketing, and Finance peers 
• Builder of leaders; coaches managers and develops talent through change 
• Operates well in entrepreneurial, fast-evolving environments and helps install operating discipline 
• Bias to action with a thoughtful, structured approach to org-design problems 

JOB CONDITIONS

• Office environment; onsite at AMain HQ in Chico, CA 
• Some travel may be required (vendor visits, marketplace events, HobbyTown corporate stores, industry shows)