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Category Specialist

Staples
Full Timemid
CAPosted April 17, 2026

Job Description

Some of what you will do:

Our Category Specialists are accountable to meet financial sales and gross margin targets for their categories. Working collaboratively with their Category Manager, they will assist in sourcing and building assortments, developing promotions, setting pricing, and delivering best-in-class presentation to drive sustained growth and capture market share including supporting programmatic customer opportunities. This role will partner closely with across our Merchandise, Strategy, Planning and Allocation teams.

Specifically, You Will:

  • Working closely with Category Manager, develop channel-relevant assortments leveraging solid analytics, industry trends and vendor/brand insights.
  • Work with Category Manager on all line reviews.
  • Proactively seek out category insights from vendors and external sources of information.
  • Provide presales support to high value/specific customer opportunities.
  • Support programmatic customer opportunities that could include RFI (Request for Information), RFQ (Request for Quotation), RFP (Request for Proposal) and other customer requests.
  • Onboard and set up new SKUs by collecting all required content from vendor partners and following established set-up guidelines.
  • Set and maintain pricing, ensuring it is in line with pricing policies and strategies for the category.
  • Monitor integrity of systems data (AS400, Sunrise, Alpha).
  • Work with the planograming department to ensure inline presentation aligns with category strategies, keeping the customer shopping experience top-of-mind.

Work with vendors to establish effective off-shelf displays that adhere to presentation criteria and balance both inventory investment and sales forecast.

  • Some of what you need:
  • Post secondary diploma with a focus on retail management, merchandising and purchasing or equivalent experience.
  • Understanding of basic merchandising and marketing strategies.
  • Required to commit necessary time to fluctuating priorities and meet the demands of the position.

Minimum of 1-3 years of previous retail management, purchasing or merchandising experience.

  • Some of what you will get:
  • Associate discount
  • Health and Dental benefits
  • RRSP/DPSP
  • Performance bonuses
  • Learning & Development programs

And more...

  • #LI-Hybrid

We value transparency in our hiring processes. Please note, artificial intelligence may be used in certain stages to screen, assess, or select applicants, however, a human reviewer makes all final decisions. This posting is for an existing vacancy.

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