Merchandising Specialist (9044)

Employment Type: Freelance
Work Arrangement: Onsite 3 days per week
Industry: Retail

Role Overview

We are seeking a detail-oriented Merchandising Specialist to provide operational and administrative support for an Item Data Compliance program within a large retail organization. This role helps maintain accurate, complete, and compliant item data through audit support, documentation management, reporting, tracking, and stakeholder coordination.

The consultant will work within established processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs), identify missing or inconsistent information, and escalate exceptions to the appropriate team members. This is a program support role and does not include independently making compliance determinations, setting policy, or deciding audit outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Support daily compliance audit activities by creating audit lists, reviewing required documentation for completeness, and completing recurring operational tasks.
• Maintain accurate, organized audit records, documentation, trackers, and reporting files.
• Review documentation and data against established requirements to identify missing, incomplete, or inconsistent information; escalate exceptions appropriately.
• Provide first-level intake for audit-related questions and disputes, document requests, and route issues to the appropriate team members for resolution.
• Update and maintain audit performance dashboards, trackers, and recurring reports with accurate and timely information.
• Coordinate with internal business partners and contractors to gather required information, documentation, and status updates.
• Schedule meetings, track action items, and follow up on outstanding requests to support timely completion of program activities.
• Support onboarding by preparing training materials, maintaining documentation, and coordinating administrative activities for new team members.
• Follow established SOPs and documented processes, escalating process, documentation, or data concerns to analysts or leadership.
• Perform additional administrative and operational support activities as needed.

Required Qualifications

• Strong attention to detail and a demonstrated ability to maintain accurate records, documentation, trackers, and data.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, including spreadsheet maintenance, sorting and filtering, basic formulas, and recurring report or tracker updates.
• Experience working within established procedures, SOPs, or other process-driven environments.
• Ability to review documentation or data for completeness and accuracy against defined requirements and appropriately escalate exceptions.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage multiple requests, track action items, and meet recurring deadlines.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills with the ability to coordinate effectively across business partners and team members.
• Experience supporting administrative or operational workflows involving data quality, audits, compliance, reporting, documentation, or program operations.
• Ability to identify discrepancies, missing information, and process exceptions without independently making compliance decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting audit, compliance, data governance, item or master data, quality assurance, document control, or another process-controlled business function.
• Experience maintaining operational dashboards, recurring reports, performance metrics, or tracking tools.
• Experience working in a large, matrixed enterprise environment and coordinating across multiple teams or stakeholders.

Candidate Profile

Strong candidates typically bring experience in program support, data operations, audit administration, compliance operations, document control, quality control, master data support, or a similar process-driven environment.

Direct item data compliance experience is not required. Candidates with transferable experience maintaining accurate data and documentation, following established procedures, supporting recurring reporting, and coordinating operational workflows are encouraged to apply.