Vacancy NameMerchandising Lead Vacancy NoVN1138 Job TypePermanent LocationHatfield Job Details
Merchandising Lead
Contract type:Permanent
Location:Hatfield (Hybrid working - 3 days in the office)
Working hours per week:40 hours
Level: Lead
Application Closing Date:Wednesday 3rd December 2025
About us
Our mission is to deliver joy in every shop, through unbeatable choice, unrivalled service, and reassuringly good value.
We’re Ocado Retail, a market-leading joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, and the world’s largest dedicated online supermarket,. Not only is Ocado.com the only place to shop a full range of M&S food online, it’s also the home to the widest online supermarket range in the UK and champion of small, independent brands. We’re also the brains behind, our same-day grocery delivery service.
About the team and the role
The Merchandising Lead is responsible for leading the strategy, management, and execution of Product Discovery (search, taxonomy, tagging, reviews etc) and Core Merchandising (checkout flow, featured products etc). You will be accountable for the overall success of the function, ensuring you are continually driving improvements. With the goal of enhancing the customer journey, you will need to develop the overarching strategy and lead through others to deliver commercial and customer targets and support in achieving our overall business and strategic ambitions.
What you’ll do
1. Own the Merchandising and Product Discovery Strategy for the website, tactically for the short term and strategically for the medium and long term, with a focus on core site functionality like search, navigation and other merchandising levers.
2. Define best practices and principles to enable perfect execution across product discovery and merchandising levers, including guidelines for new platform capabilities.
3. Accountable for delivering the merchandising objectives and delivery of key pillars of the overall ecommerce strategy.
4. Take strategic ownership of relevant KPIs and utilise data to optimise onsite experience in particular across search, aisles, COW, homepage.
5. Drive results and ongoing refinement of the customer journeys, search, navigation and taxonomy to ensure conversion funnel is optimised.
6. Work with the Trade & Events Lead to deliver optimisation plans on the website that support commercial trading needs whilst aligning to the Customer Plan.
7. Manage the quality and consistency of onsite experience and optimisation across the full onsite offer, including product ranging, imagery and content
8. Drive continuous improvement of processes within the Merchandising team.
9. Feed requirements for new features and functionality into wider digital development and offsite teams to ensure best possible journeys across all touch points, including CRO opportunities.
10. Work with the Product team as an SME for merchandising development opportunities and support in coordinating testing of new platform capabilities.
11. Investigate and propose new sales generation and business efficiency opportunities, with ongoing awareness of market and third party opportunities.
Who you are
12. A strong and experienced eCommerce leader, with a proven track record of defining and delivering merchandising initiatives that significantly enhance the customer journey and drive conversion.
13. A compassionate and experienced people leader, with experience managing medium sized teams, across multiple functions.
14. Have a deep and sound knowledge and understanding as well as experience of optimising customer journeys.
15. Strong analytical and data skills, with the ability to translate eCommerce metrics into actionable merchandising strategies.
16. Collaborative, engaging and clear communication, with excellent stakeholder management skills.
17. Confident presentation skills, with the ability and confidence to large groups of stakeholders with varying levels of seniority.
18. Keen interest and knowledge to keep up to date with the wider market, keeping an up to date awareness of technologies and tools within merchandising space.
What’s in it for you
By joining Ocado Retail, you’ll have the chance to experience life at the world’s largest online retailer, work with an amazing bunch of people who challenge what’s possible each day, and grow your skills and career in online retail.
If that’s not enough to tempt you, you’ll also get access to loads of great benefits to sweeten the deal. Here’s a taste of what we offer:
Health & Wellbeing: Private medical insurance with option to add your family, Digital GP appointments, market-leading family policies, mental health support, discounted gym memberships, dental insurance, and more.
Spend & Save: Annual bonus scheme split between personal and business objectives, recognition with reward platform, up to 7% matched pension contributions, 15% Ocado discount, 20% M&S discount, free breakfast every day in the office, electric vehicle leasing scheme, and free shuttle bus from Hatfield station to the office.
Never miss the moments that matter: Hybrid working, 26 days holiday plus 8 flexible bank holidays, options to buy extra holiday, 2 weeks work from anywhere, and lifestyle break opportunities.
Our Hiring Process
Lucky for us, we receive a high volume of applications and genuinely appreciate the time and effort invested by every candidate. To ensure a fair and thorough process, every application is reviewed by a member of our team. If your skills and experience are a strong match, a Talent Partner will contact you to discuss the role and guide you through the next steps of our hiring process.
Your Application and AI
In the spirit of innovation, we welcome you to use AI tools in your application, just as we use them in our own business at Ocado Retail. However, as you leverage this technology, please don't lose sight of the most important element: your unique self. Your experiences, passions, and personality are what truly set you apart. Ensure that your application still authentically conveys who you are and why you're a great fit for us.
Everyone’s welcome