Be the reason

Staples is business to business. You’re what binds us together.

Our Merchandising team shapes the products, assortments, and customer experiences that help businesses thrive. As a Senior Specialist, Category Development, you’ll turn customer, competitive, and market intelligence into clear recommendations that support category growth, product innovation, and smart portfolio decisions.

As a Senior Specialist, Category Development, you’ll serve as a research and insights partner for Merchandising and cross-functional teams. You’ll benchmark markets and competitors, analyze category performance, and translate complex information into actionable insights that help drive differentiated growth, sustainable incremental margin, and customer value.

Key Responsibilities include:

• Monitor customer reviews, ratings, feedback, competitor assortments, pricing, features, packaging, and innovation activity to identify unmet needs, risks, and growth opportunities.

• Analyze category performance, assortment productivity, Owned Brand penetration, hero products, redundancies, and whitespace opportunities to support category reviews and portfolio health assessments.

• Research customer pain points, evolving needs, product concepts, materials, specifications, value propositions, and competitive design trends to support product briefs and business cases.

• Develop competitive landscape reports, category scorecards, trend reports, executive-ready summaries, presentations, and opportunity assessments for business partners and leadership.

• Maintain insight repositories, improve research methods and reporting tools, and share best practices that help teams move from observations to decisions.

• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with the ability to connect trends, performance metrics, and business results to practical opportunities and risks.

• Ability to synthesize complex information from multiple sources into clear, actionable insights and recommendations.

• Effective written, verbal, and presentation communication skills, including the ability to translate complex findings into concise business implications.

• Customer-focused mindset, strong business acumen, and curiosity about retail, consumer behavior, market trends, and competitive dynamics.

• Confidence managing multiple priorities, working independently within established processes, and escalating complex or high-risk issues when appropriate.

• Collaborative approach with the ability to partner across Merchandising, Category Development, Product Development, Marketing, Analytics, and other cross-functional teams.

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Merchandising, Analytics, Market Research, or related field.

• 2+ years of experience in category management, merchandising, market research, consumer insights, business analytics, or related field.

• Experience analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from multiple sources.

• Experience creating reports, presentations, dashboards, or stakeholder recommendations that translate insights into action.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

  Experience supporting Private Brand, product development, or innovation initiatives in retail, consumer products, category management, or merchandising environments. 

  Experience using market research, competitive intelligence, or benchmarking tools to develop executive-level presentations and business recommendations. 

  Advanced proficiency with Excel and data analysis techniques.

• Inclusive culture with associate-led Business Resource Groups

• Flexible PTO (22 days) and Holiday Schedule (7 observed paid holidays)

• Online and Retail Discounts, Company Match 401(k), Physical and Mental Health Wellness programs, and more!

Chez Staples, « inclusion » est un mot d'action. Il représente ce que nous faisons pour garantir que tous les employés se sentent valorisés et soutenus afin de contribuer à leur plein potentiel. Lorsque nous opérons de manière inclusive, la diversité suit naturellement. C'est pourquoi nous travaillons dur pour favoriser une culture inclusive, car nous recherchons des employés ayant des perspectives uniques et variées et des domaines d'expertise divers. Le résultat est un meilleur environnement de travail et une réflexion innovante qui nous aide à dépasser les attentes de nos clients – grâce à la force des personnes derrière notre marque emblématique.

Staples est un employeur garantissant l'égalité des chances. Tous les candidats qualifiés seront pris en considération pour un emploi sans distinction de race, couleur, religion, âge, sexe, orientation sexuelle, identité de genre, origine nationale, statut de vétéran protégé, handicap ou toute autre base protégée par la loi fédérale, étatique ou locale.