Junior Merchandiser in Leicester

Overview

Home. There’s no place like it. And there’s no feeling like helping people create the joy of feeling truly at home. At Dunelm, that’s what we do. We’re the UK’s number one choice for homewares because we make home life lovelier for our customers. And we’ve crafted a workplace that feels just as welcoming – where you can bring your ideas, be yourself, and feel right at home.

With us, buying isn’t about chasing bargains and merchandising isn’t about pushing an endless parade of promotions. We do things differently. With us, it’s about creativity, instinct, and a real passion for home. We’re experts at understanding trends and performance, making quick decisions that keep our products and layouts perfectly timed, perfectly designed and perfectly marketed.

Get stuck in from day one, and you’ll make a real difference. You’ll learn as you go, grow in confidence, and start taking small steps towards owning your own ranges. It’s lively, rewarding, and full of opportunities to learn and shine.

At Dunelm, we want you to feel right at home happy, supported, and excited about where your career can go. From your very first day, we’ll make sure you have the training, tools and guidance you need to settle in and start growing. And the support doesn’t stop there, we’ll be with you every step of the way as you progress.

This role is a second step on the merchandising career path. From here, you could step up into a Merchandiser position, with access to brilliant, tailored courses and sessions to help you keep developing your skills. We believe in helping you become the best version of yourself and making the journey enjoyable along the way.

What you’ll be doing

• Build Strong Relationships: You’ll work cross-functionally within your category, driving performance and staying ahead of the game for upcoming launches and events.
• Support the Team: Help with sales and stock analysis, presenting your findings in a clear, simple, and engaging way to aid in creating our product range.
• Know Your Stuff: Get to know our product range inside out, ensuring all orders are accurate and on time. Manage line cards to reflect changes in sales patterns and adapt stock accordingly.
• Optimise Stock Flow: Ensure pack sizes and shelf fills meet the sales plan, maintaining efficient stock flow to stores and online within target cover parameters.
• Manage Allocations: Keep stock allocations on track to hit launch deadlines and maintain strong availability.
• Critical Path Management: Oversee the critical path for your department, ensuring products arrive on time and are allocated to the correct stores for launch.
• Supplier Relationships: Build a good rapport with suppliers, leading meetings and negotiating volumes, pack sizes, and shipment plans.
• Collaborate with Visual Merchandising: Work with the Visual Merchandising team to ensure planograms, grading, and fill levels are spot on.
• Understand Stock KPIs: Identify risks and trading opportunities to maintain cover targets, and take action on slow sellers.
• Maintain Availability: Assist the Merchandising team in planning department line-cards, maintain strong relationships with suppliers, and prepare weekly stock summary reports with actions to improve and maintain availability.
• Targets: Ensure strong in-store and online availability, keeping stock levels within company targets and ensuring accurate store allocations.

What we’ll look for in you

• Proven merchandising experience. This role is the next step in our merchandising hierarchy, requiring previous experience as a commercial merchandise assistant, merchandiser administrator, or any other relevant merchandising experience.
• You’re naturally organised and love a good plan (bonus points if colour-coded spreadsheets make you happy).
• You’re calm under pressure and can juggle a few spinning plates without breaking a sweat—or at least without dropping the important ones.
• You’re a clear communicator who knows how to keep everyone in the loop, whether it’s a quick update or chasing a deadline (nicely, of course).
• You’re not afraid to ask questions, challenge a delay, or speak up if something doesn’t look quite right.
• You’ve got a good eye for detail, but you also know when to zoom out and see the bigger picture.
• You’re a team player—someone who’s kind, reliable, and up for jumping in when things get busy.

If that’s ticking your boxes, we’d love to have you on board! Colleagues can grow their skills (and their confidence) by taking on a fully funded Level 4 apprenticeship—because we’re all about cheering you on as you build your career.