Vice President of Merchandising

Vice President of Merchandising

COS BAR | Multi-Brand Luxury Beauty Retailer

Position Overview

COS BAR is seeking a strategic, commercially driven Vice President of Merchandising to lead the company's merchandising vision, brand portfolio, and assortment strategy across all categories. This individual will be responsible for building and evolving a differentiated portfolio of luxury beauty brands that reflects the COS BAR customer, reinforces the company's market positioning, and drives sustainable growth.

The VP of Merchandising will oversee brand curation, vendor relationships, assortment optimization, business analysis, and visual merchandising. Through a combination of market intelligence, customer insights, and financial performance analysis, this individual will identify opportunities to grow existing brands, optimize the portfolio, introduce new partnerships, and uncover category and product white space.

Working closely with executive leadership, Planning, Marketing, Digital, Finance, and Retail Operations, the VP will ensure a cohesive merchandising strategy across the physical store fleet and e-commerce business.

Salary

85k Annually and up depending on experiance

Key Responsibilities

1. Merchandising Strategy & Brand Portfolio Management

• Own the overall merchandising strategy and curation of a differentiated portfolio of luxury beauty brands across skincare, makeup, fragrance, and haircare.
• Lead brand selection, evaluation, onboarding, and ongoing portfolio management, ensuring alignment with COS BAR's positioning, customer, and business objectives.
• Establish and implement a disciplined Grow, Maintain, Decline framework to evaluate brand performance and portfolio relevance.
• Develop growth strategies for high-potential brands, optimize existing partnerships, and identify underperforming brands requiring assortment rationalization or strategic exit.
• Identify emerging brands, product innovation, and market trends that strengthen the assortment and differentiate COS BAR.

1. Business Analysis, Assortment & White Space

• Partner with Planning and Finance to evaluate business performance across brands, categories, and individual SKUs.
• Establish and monitor key metrics, including sales, gross margin, sell through, inventory productivity, weeks of supply, and category performance.
• Translate business analytics, customer insights, and competitive intelligence into actionable merchandising strategies.
• Lead ongoing brand, category, and product white space analysis to identify opportunities for assortment expansion and incremental growth.
• Evaluate category penetration, customer demand, market trends, and competitive distribution to identify gaps and opportunities.
• Develop strategic recommendations and business cases for new brand introductions, category expansion, exclusive offerings, and assortment investment.

1. Product Attributes & Assortment Optimization

• Own product attribute strategy and classification across the COS BAR assortment, ensuring accurate and consistent product information.
• Establish relevant product attributes, including category, subcategory, product type, skin concern, ingredient, benefit, formulation, shade, scent family, and size.
• Partner with Digital and E-commerce to ensure product attributes support website navigation, search, filtering, and product discovery.
• Optimize SKU productivity and assortment architecture, balancing hero products, core replenishment, innovation, pricing tiers, and emerging opportunities.
• Ensure assortment relevance and consistency across physical retail and e commerce.

1. Vendor & Brand Relationship Management

• Own senior-level relationships with COS BAR's portfolio of luxury beauty brands and strategic vendor partners.
• Lead vendor negotiations across margins, terms, exclusivity, inventory commitments, promotional participation, and marketing support.
• Establish clear expectations around brand performance, inventory support, training, marketing contributions, and overall partnership.
• Lead regular vendor business reviews in partnership with Planning to assess performance, opportunities, and strategic priorities.
• Maximize vendor support through exclusive offerings, co-marketing, events, education, and visual merchandising resources.
• Identify and develop new brand partnerships that complement and strengthen the COS BAR portfolio.

1. Visual Merchandising & Store Presentation

• Own the visual merchandising strategy, ensuring an elevated and consistent in-store presentation that reflects COS BAR's luxury positioning.
• Establish standards for brand presentation, product placement, category adjacencies, fixtures, and promotional displays across the store fleet.
• Partner with Retail Operations, Marketing, and brand partners on seasonal floor sets, new brand launches, and in-store merchandising initiatives.
• Leverage sales performance and customer behavior to optimize product placement, category presentation, and the in-store customer journey.• Ensure brand environments are cohesive while maintaining differentiated and compelling presentations across the multi-brand assortment.

1. Cross-Functional Leadership & Team Development

• Partner with executive leadership to establish merchandising priorities and long-term business objectives.
• Collaborate with Marketing on brand priorities, product launches, seasonal initiatives, and promotional strategies.
• Partner with Digital and E-commerce to optimize online assortment, product content, and product discovery.
• Work closely with Planning and Finance on forecasting, inventory investment, open-to-buy, margin management, and financial performance.
• Partner with Retail Operations to ensure assortment and visual merchandising strategies translate effectively across locations. • Lead, develop, and mentor the merchandising team, establishing clear priorities, accountability, and a high-performance culture.

Qualifications & Experience

• 12+ years of progressive merchandising experience, ideally within luxury beauty, prestige beauty, or multi-brand specialty retail.
• Proven experience leading brand portfolios, category strategies, assortment planning, and vendor relationships.
• Strong understanding of luxury beauty brands, product innovation, and the competitive retail landscape. • Demonstrated ability to evaluate brand and SKU performance and implement actionable Grow, Maintain, Decline strategies.
• Exceptional analytical capabilities, with experience leveraging sales, margin, inventory, and customer data to drive decisions.
• Experience with product attributes, taxonomy, assortment architecture, and e-commerce merchandising.
• Proven ability to identify category white space, develop new brand partnerships, and drive incremental growth.
• Experience developing visual merchandising strategies across multiple retail locations.
• Strong vendor negotiation, financial management, and relationship-building skills. • Exceptional leadership, communication, and strategic planning capabilities.
• A passion for luxury beauty, fragrance, skincare, makeup, haircare, and the evolving beauty consumer.