Assistant Merchandiser
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Coventry Store Support Centre - Ansty Park and Home, Coventry, CV7 9RD
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Food Commercial
Closing date: 21 January 2026
Requisition ID: 400045683
Join our Clothing team and play a key role in bringing great quality, beautifully made clothing to our customers. As an Assistant Merchandiser, you’ll drive the journey from order confirmation through to on‑time delivery, working closely with suppliers, technical teams, and UK Merchandising partners to ensure every product is delivered seamlessly and accurately.
This role is perfect for someone who thrives on detail, enjoys fast‑paced problem‑solving, and has strong analytical capability. You’ll be confident working with data, breaking information down clearly, and using Excel to build, manage, and interpret formats that support critical decisions across the sourcing and production cycle.
If you’re proactive, curious, and excited by the challenge of ensuring excellent availability for customers, this is the perfect next step in your merchandising career.
What You’ll Do
You’ll take ownership for the full execution cycle, ensuring products move smoothly through production and shipment. Your day‑to‑day will involve managing critical paths, building strong supplier relationships, and keeping teams aligned across regions.
You’ll independently run progress meetings, maintain accurate production and delivery timelines, troubleshoot risks before they escalate, and support the development process from sampling through to handover. You’ll also collaborate closely with UK Merchandising to understand trading priorities and ensure we deliver great commercial outcomes.
As your experience grows, so will your understanding of garment production, sustainability considerations, capacity planning, and the tactical levers needed to recover timelines. This is a role where learning and growth are continuous and encouraged.
Who You Are
You’re organised, solutions‑focused, and confident communicating with a wide range of stakeholders across different cultures. You’re naturally proactive and someone who spots issues early, seeks solutions, and isn’t afraid to challenge when needed.
You’re commercially aware, keen to develop your technical and production knowledge, and motivated to make a real impact on availability, delivery accuracy, and supplier performance. You enjoy building strong relationships and take pride in being a reliable and transparent partner to your colleagues.
Essential Criteria
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data effectively
- Confident and advanced user of Excel (building formats, analysing data, breaking down information)
- Ability to read commercial reports (e.g., WSSI) and interpret key metrics
- Clear interest in sourcing, merchandising, and garment production
- Developing knowledge of production processes, techniques, and components
- Understanding of factors that drive lead times across regions
- Strong organisational skills with an eye for spotting risk
- Confident communicator
- Ability to negotiate timelines and manage supplier performance
You’ll split your time between home and Ansty SSC (Coventry), coming into the office when it matters most for collaboration and business needs.
#Commercial
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 save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. 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 up to an additional week's 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, salary 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).
