Marc Bauer

• Manage performance and develop employees; provide resources, training, feedback, and development opportunities
• Assist customers and work hands-on with employees, ensuring they have the resources and knowledge to provide incredible service to our customers
• Identify ways to build positive customer relationships and improve their shopping experience
• Use knowledge of product, benchmarking, and trends to plan, implement and create innovative displays and access to a variety of unique items; promote featured and seasonal items
• Execute corporate merchandising strategy; ensure teams follow plan-o-grams and seasonal aisle layouts; use design and cross-merchandising techniques that entice and encourage impulse purchases
• Oversee all Home and Entertaining operations, including sales, contribution, diversity, development, and retention; share company vision and meet goals; delegate tasks and supervise team to maximize efficiency
• Collaborated with other departments to ensure seamless coordination in achieving company-wide objectives.

• Managed multiple vendors and category merchants working to sort and gather data & information on current and seasonal product assortments.
• Worked with our data management to increase the amount of Home & Entertaining products onto wegmans.com.
• Worked with marketing team to capture images of products not provided by vendors
• Edited descriptions and dimensions of products before finally sending information off to Syndigo to be loaded online.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to develop innovative product solutions, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.

• Trained in merchandising, product placement, and product knowledge in Home & Entertaining.
• Used buy plans and product assortment to build company POG’s that represent our brand focus.
• Traveled to stores to conduct Home & Entertaining department resets to implement new company vison & strategies.

• Success in growing 10 week Health & Wellness Holiday Gift program from $1.4ml in 2014 total sales to $4.1ml in total sales in 2018
• Review previous year’s growth, opportunity, customer, and store employee feedback to build next year’s programs.
• Search out trends in the Health, Beauty, Wellness & Fashion by attending Americasmart in Atlanta, NYNOW in New York, Magic in Las Vegas, and various ECRM conferences to offer customers on trend gift offerings while staying on brand for the company.
• Work extensively with vendors and manufacturers to create exclusive products and assortments.
• Create innovative seasonal and eye-catching plan o gram for our stores to execute.
• Assist with planning and executing “Sell Show” Video Teleconference for all of our stores to attend. Showcasing final product selections and gathering feedback.
• Continuously improving merchandising and working through our 10 week selling time frame in our stores, sending out merchandising updates, giving recommendations on how to react to sell through, and managing product distributions.

SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT; ASSISTING HEALTH & WELLNESS SKINCARE MERCHANT

• Review existing skincare assortments to look for opportunities that we are missing to offer to our customer.
• Prescreen potential skincare brands through emails and phone meetings to find out more about brands and brand offerings.
• Sit in and give feedback on potential skincare brand meetings offering more of our customer and store perspective.
• Work with new brands to customize assortments and plan o grams for our stores

BEAUTY TEAM LEADER; PITTSFORD FLAGSHIP STORE

• Liaison between our Corporate Office and the store on Health & Wellness successes
• And opportunities, consistently sharing customer and employee feedback.
• Help to maintain brand, store, & office communication.
• Assist customers in our store with product selection in haircare, skincare, & cosmetics.
• Create eye catching displays within department to showcase smaller unique brands with focus on natural.
• Maintain ordering for both conventional and natural skincare brands.

• Responsible for the overall inventory & visual appearance of the store
• Oversaw maintenance and all operations within the store including product fixture updates, managing tester and damage budget, maintaining store stock levels, and managing store supplies and supply budget
• Train entire staff as well as multiple Store Managers in Training, and Operations Leaders in Training in Upstate District on Sephora Processes
• Educate high caliber Operations Consultants rapidly to be promoted to Operations Leaders.

• Transferred to store to improve overall appearance and atmosphere of store
• Responsible for educating and training staff on each new product launch
• Held accountable to overall total customer experience within building

o While at Eastview recognized by my District Manager for my creative talent in Visual Merchandising, and was asked to take on a “growth assignment” in the Boston area (Natick and Southshore) with Bath & Body Works Flagship stores.

o Worked with below standard stores to teach them how to merchandise and maintain their stores to achieve the Bath & Body Works Flagship concept.

o Along with the DM came up with action plans for those stores and time lines to bring them to company standard.

BATH & BODY WORKS – Rochester, NY Westgate Plaza; Store Manager

• Responsible for entire staff (3 sales leaders and staff of 15)
• Hired high quality part-time staff to put in que for the Rochester market
• Trained and developed in-store sales leaders to allow them to be promoted to next highest volume stores

C.O. BIGELOW – Boston, MA (special assignment)

• Selected to assist in opening C.O. Bigelow at Copley Place in downtown Boston
• Worked with visual team to begin to merchandise this “New Concept” high end skincare and makeup store.
• Spent 3 months in various areas of store assisting the visual team to create visual direction to roll out to other stores.

C.O. BIGELOW – Boston, MA - Peabody, MA (special assignment)

• Returned to Boston as part of Visual Merchandising Team to finalize Copley Place merchandising
• Went to Northshore Mall In Peabody, MA to work as part of Visual Merchandising team with setting up displays and mapping out product placement in the store
• Created displays with new brands to be sent to other C.O. Bigelow stores to execute

BATH & BODY WORKS – Rochester, NY Marketplace Mall; Co-Manager

• Trained in all areas of business capabilities, talent, and brand
• Assigned Brand Manager, responsible for visual execution in store as well as increasing associate merchandising knowledge
• Responsible for delighting and total customer experience in the store.
  
  

• Executed in-season pricing strategies, promotions and markdowns to reach financial targets.
• Set sales quotas, established performance expectations to optimize sales and customer service.
• Responsible for planning and executing merchandise shipments as company directive.
• Work with management team to create positive customer experience.
• Supervise and motivate staff to exceed store goals and standards.
• React to merchandise sell-through to maintain strong visual presentation

• Consistently Review Buy Plans with merchants and vendors to create seasonal & everyday POG's
• Frequently reacted to merchandising obstacles, late items, quick sell through, and send out communication to stores to keep displays fresh and on brand.
• Follow up with vendors on sampling, packaging, top samples to be merchandised in our POG showroom.
• Review trends, customer requests, family requests, past season sell through to continue to plan upcoming merchandising.
• Mentored new hires in new & existing markets, resulting in stronger staff development and increased productivity.
• Contributed to the retention of top talent by providing employees with the resources and support necessary to excel in their roles.
• Contributed to reductions in employee turnover by revamping training programs.
• Established and maintained merchandising standards within the organization.
• Built and maintained professional relationships with stores, merchants, vendors and suppliers.
• Provided one-on-one mentoring to help individuals reach their full potential within the organization.
• Coached employees on best practices, providing constructive feedback to support their professional growth.
• Evaluated the effectiveness of training initiatives by tracking participant progress and gathering feedback for continuous improvement.
• Enhanced store visuals by designing and implementing innovative merchandising displays.
• Streamlined fixture setup processes, reducing time spent on labor-intensive tasks while maintaining high-quality presentations.