About Wayfair Professional (aka Wayfair B2B): Wayfair Professional is the ‘gated’ experience of Wayfair dedicated to all business customers. We organize our customer base and corresponding offering (site and sales) into 7 industry verticals, prioritizing our Interior Design, Commercial Office and Contractor experiences. In 2021, we expect to generate $2B in GRS and we are on a journey to being a $5B+ business by 2025 (+30% YoY growth), with over a $300B opportunity to cover across North America and Europe over the subsequent 10 years.
Wayfair Professional is seeking a talented, strategic leader to join our Capabilities org in order to lead and grow a specialized team of category specialists. This team drives value for the B2B organization by forming deep relationships with core suppliers and advising sales teams on technical categories for project shoppers (e.g., Lighting, Flooring, Plumbing, Appliances). This candidate will be instrumental in leading this team to better understand our supplier capabilities and drive a larger impact on our business sales. This includes defining and integrating key supplier capabilities, standardizing processes / tech across the team for efficiency, and leading innovative pilots to help us drive higher customer satisfaction. The ideal candidate is familiar with project-based B2B sales, self-motivated, goal-oriented, and thrives in our fast-paced environment.
Who we are:
The Category Specialist team is critical in enabling our business sales team to compete and win complex projects. Members of the Category Specialist team are experts in their category and form strong relationships with suppliers and partner teams throughout Wayfair. The work is project based, with the goal of helping sales teams win complex category bids in various end markets, including Contractor and Accommodations. The team is scrappy and self-motivated, and thrives when competing for large, complex deals. The Category Specialist belongs to the broader Capabilities org, which includes partner teams that provide other value-added services to customers including Space Planning & Design and Consolidated Delivery.
What you will do:
- Learn the nuances of technical product categories, key suppliers, and business account needs
- Build relationships with key manufacturers and suppliers, improve interaction and negotiation process on RFPs (request for proposals) to support the sales floor with closing more jobs
- Support execution of innovative pilots by providing insight on required capabilities, expected timelines, and key risks
- Identify efficiency improvements within the team and lead process improvements to drive a step-change in operational capability
- Liaise with key stakeholders to include Category Management to understand future roadmaps and position the team to support broader B2B objectives
- Create career pathways for employees, differentiating between levels roles and enabling more complex process management skills
- Serve as a continual thought leader on Wayfair services and sales activities, use data to drive program evolution, proactively identify bottlenecks and troubleshoot solutions, and lead a team that drives improvement in service offerings and operational metrics
- Drive growth in project-based sales that leverage technical product categories
- Travel ~10% for tradeshows and to meet with internal Wayfair teams
Who you are:
- 4+ years of successful supplier / vendor relationship management, operations management, or success management
- Experience as a buyer / merchant or merchandising manager for a brand or non-marketplace retailer
- Experience creating, implementing, or managing progress against a supplier / vendor success recipe that aligns with the business' needs
- Focus on managing or optimizing assortment / selection based on internal and market trends
- Proven ability as a passionate people-centric leader who can effectively drive results in a fast-paced and rapidly growing company
- Able to hit the ground running – a confident, entrepreneurial self-starter with the ability to manage and prioritize projects to delegate tasks appropriately
About Wayfair Inc.
Wayfair is one of the world’s largest online destinations for the home. Whether you work in our global headquarters in Boston or Berlin, or in our warehouses or offices throughout the world, we’re reinventing the way people shop for their homes. Through our commitment to industry-leading technology and creative problem-solving, we are confident that Wayfair will be home to the most rewarding work of your career. If you’re looking for rapid growth, constant learning, and dynamic challenges, then you’ll find that amazing career opportunities are knocking.
No matter who you are, Wayfair is a place you can call home. We’re a community of innovators, risk-takers, and trailblazers who celebrate our differences, and know that our unique perspectives make us stronger, smarter, and well-positioned for success. We value and rely on the collective voices of our employees, customers, community, and suppliers to help guide us as we build a better Wayfair – and world – for all. Every voice, every perspective matters. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or genetic information.