Item Master & Merchandising Specialist
Position Type: Full-Time
Department: Operations / Merchandising / IT
Reports To: IT Director
Who we are
PFI is a 93-year-old certified woman-owned leader in the field of incentives, recognition, and engagement. Founded under the name of Schaffer Partners during the height of the Great Depression in 1932, we continue to retain that name for corporate purposes.
PFI may be one of the world's first incentive companies and is certainly among the earliest companies committed to selling exclusively through promotional and other distribution partners. Our founders, Louis L. Schaffer and Joseph Kargher, began as a marketing company for retailers, providing "premiums" and reward programs designed to help retailers attract customers through earned gifts in exchange for their patronage.
The company later entered the trading stamp business under the name Family Stamps, marketing trading stamps throughout the Midwest and East Coast. In 1959, anticipating changes in the trading stamp industry, Schaffer and Kargher created a new business focused on helping organizations motivate employees to increase sales and improve customer service. That business was initially named Promotions for Industry (PFI). In 1989, the company changed its name to Partners for Incentives, reflecting its mission of working exclusively through third-party distributors.
In 2002, Schaffer Partners was sold by the family to the company's CFO, Mary Anne Comotto, who continues to lead the company today as a certified woman-owned business.
Today, Schaffer Partners, Inc. and its Partners for Incentives business work with nearly 1,500 distributors each year, providing measurable incentive, recognition, and engagement programs that help their clients increase sales, loyalty, productivity, quality, service, wellness, safety, and achieve virtually any organizational goal involving people.
Position Overview
We are looking for a highly organized, analytical, and resourceful Item Master & Merchandising Specialist to manage and maintain the accuracy and integrity of our item master database.
This position will be responsible for setting up and maintaining products, reviewing item information, researching discrepancies, and ensuring that product data is accurate across our systems. This position also will be responsible for maintaining and setting up scheduled jobs for invoicing, item catalogue updates, quote keys, price files, and other jobs. The ideal candidate may come from a purchasing, merchandising, retail, inventory, e-commerce, or incentive/recognition program background and enjoys working with both data and technology. This is a hands-on position for someone who is a fast learner, thinks logically, pays close attention to detail, and can make quick, sound decisions when issues arise.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage and maintain the company's item master database, including new item setup, changes, pricing, descriptions, specifications, images, and other product information.
- Review item data for accuracy, completeness, and consistency.
- Research and resolve item, pricing, cost, inventory, and product-data discrepancies.
- Work closely with Purchasing, Merchandising, Operations, Customer Service, and IT to ensure item information is correct and up to date.
- Work closely with Sales and Accounting to setup invoicing and other customer related jobs in the scheduler.
- Determine the appropriate way to handle new products, discontinued products, substitutions, replacements, variations, and other item changes.
- Maintain product images and other digital assets using tools such as Photoshop.
- Use Excel extensively to analyze data, identify discrepancies, and create reports.
- Help establish and improve processes for managing the item master and related product information.
- Identify repetitive manual processes that could be automated, and work with the appropriate team members to develop more efficient solutions.
- Test system changes and processes to ensure they produce the expected results.
- Troubleshoot basic technical issues and communicate effectively with IT when more advanced assistance is required.
- Maintain documentation and procedures related to item setup and maintenance.
- Make timely decisions when information is incomplete or issues require immediate resolution.
- Take ownership of problems and follow them through to resolution.
- Light lifting.
Qualifications & Skills
Required:
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent attention to detail.
- Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Word.
- Working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop or similar image-editing software.
- Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities.
- Ability to learn new software, databases, and processes quickly.
- Ability to make quick, logical decisions and take ownership of those decisions.
- Good written and verbal communication skills.
- Basic technical knowledge, including familiarity with computers, printers, peripherals, and basic hardware troubleshooting.
- Ability to understand how information flows through a database and how changes can affect other processes.
Preferred Experience
Experience in one or more of the following areas is a plus:
- Purchasing
- Merchandising
- Retail
- Inventory or product management
- E-commerce
- Product/catalog management
- Incentive, recognition, or rewards programs
- Database or ERP systems
- Data analysis and reporting
- Process improvement or automation
- Previous experience working with Varnet is especially valuable, as it provides familiarity with the type of product, inventory, purchasing, order, and item-management processes used in our business.
What We're Looking For
The successful candidate doesn't necessarily need to be a database programmer. We are looking for someone who can understand how things work, recognize when something doesn't look right, investigate the problem, and figure out the best solution. You should be comfortable asking questions, learning new systems, working with large amounts of data, and looking for ways to make processes better. If you see a repetitive task and think, "There has to be a better way to do this," you will likely be a great fit for this position. We're looking for someone who is curious, adaptable, and comfortable working in an environment where priorities can change quickly. You don't need to know everything on day one—you need to be willing and able to learn.
Why This Position Matters
The item master is at the center of many of our company's processes. Accurate item information is critical to purchasing, inventory, pricing, ordering, fulfillment, reporting, and customer satisfaction.
This position will play an important role in maintaining that accuracy while helping the company develop smarter, more efficient, and increasingly automated processes.
If you enjoy working with data, solving problems, improving processes, and learning how systems work, we'd like to hear from you.
Pay: $20.00 - $27.00 per hour
Expected hours: 40.0 per week
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Employee discount
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Life insurance
- On-the-job training
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Store discount
- Tuition reimbursement
Work Location: In person
