Title: College Store Specialist
|
Position Purpose:
The College Store Specialist is a dynamic and essential role responsible for the daily operations of the college store. This position combines key responsibilities in course material management, e-commerce, merchandising, and general retail operations. The specialist will work with a high degree of autonomy under the supervision of the College Store Director to support the mission of the college by providing excellent service to students, faculty, and staff, and by ensuring the efficient and profitable operation of the store.
|
|
Job Duties:
E-Commerce and Technology:
- Oversee all aspects of the College Store's online presence, including the Shopify e-commerce platform. This includes order fulfillment, customer communication, product management, and online merchandising.
- Act as the main point of contact for all issues related to the store’s point-of-sale Booklog, (POS) and database software. With responsibilities for researching, integrating, and training staff on new systems and software.
- Assist with creating digital and print promotional materials using software such as Adobe Photoshop, GSuite, and MailChimp. To include manage email marketing and social media campaigns.
Merchandising and Stockroom Management:
- Meet with vendors and make buying decisions for general merchandise, managing to a budget. Ensure the sales floor is neat, clean, well-stocked, and organized, maintaining high standards of merchandise presentation.
- Receive and stock a variety of merchandise and course materials. This includes data entry, quality control inspection, inventory control, and database maintenance.
- Coordinate all shipping activities, including regular review of costs and services offered to customers. Coordinate returns to vendors for overstock, damaged, or defective products, and reconcile invoices and claims with carriers; UPS and FedEx.
General Store Operations:
- Maintain familiarity with registers and daily deposit procedures.
- Ability to create purchase orders, daily journal entries and Banner Document Management.
- Manage student employees and part-time staff involved in cashiering, sales floor restocking, and order fulfillment.
- Maintain a general understanding of the budget and how it impacts all aspects of the store.
- Cross-train in all aspects of the store functions, with selected areas of accountability.
- Ability and willingness to work weekends, evenings, and other non- traditional schedules is necessary, particularly during peak seasons.
Textbook and Course Material Management:
- Manage the entire lifecycle of specialty course materials, not sourced by eCampus.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for faculty, instructing them on the textbook adoption process and encouraging timely submissions.
- Analyze, predict, and plan inventory levels for all course materials, and oversee the physical stocking, maintenance of the sales floor, and returns to vendors.
|
|
Minimum Qualifications:
Education
The successful candidate will have a combination of education and experience equivalent to college courses in business administration or a closely related field.
Experience
- At least two years of proven work experience in a customer service, office, or retail environment.
- Experience in a retail operation, including shipping, receiving, inventory, and cashiering is highly desired.
- Experience with merchandise buying and knowledge of e-commerce platforms like Shopify is a plus.
Skills and Knowledge
- Commitment to equity and inclusion, and serving the needs of a culturally and educationally diverse community.
- Strong business aptitude with excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Impeccable time, task, and project management skills with a high level of attention to detail.
- Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
- Ability to consistently meet or exceed the needs of both internal and external customers.
- Ability to work autonomously, handle multiple priorities with minimal supervision, and solve problems proactively.
- Basic proficiency or the aptitude to learn software programs like Booklog, Shopify, Banner, Adobe Sign, GSuite, and Zoom.
|
| |
|
Benefits:
Bates College offers competitive salaries, excellent benefits (health, dental, 9% retirement contribution with potential for an additional 3% match, 10 days of vacation*, 13 paid holidays, free parking, access to library and athletic facilities & more), and a supportive, collegial environment in a drug- and smoke-free workplace.
|
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement:
Bates College is committed to the principle of equal opportunity and providing an educational and work environment free from discrimination. The college prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, age, disability, genetic information or veteran status and other legally protected statuses in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its education policies and programs, or in the recruitment of its faculty and staff. Bates College adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations. All college faculty, staff, students, contractors, visitors, and volunteers are responsible for understanding and complying with the Non-Discrimination Policy.
Inquiries concerning the college’s policies, compliance with applicable laws, statutes, and regulations (such as Title VII, Title IX, and ADA/Section 504), and complaints may be directed to Gwen Lexow, Title IX Officer, 207-786-6445 or via email at glexow@bates.edu.
About Bates:
Bates is internationally recognized as a leading liberal arts college, attracting 2,000 students from across the U.S. and around the world.
Since 1855, Bates has been dedicated to educating the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. Committed to opportunity and excellence, Bates has always admitted students without regard to gender, race, religion, or national origin.
Cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action, Bates prepares leaders sustained by a love of learning and zeal for responsible stewardship of the wider world. Bates engages the forces — intellectual trends, demographic changes, and technology — that are transforming higher education and the world into which our students graduate.
Bates has highly competitive admissions, graduates over 90 percent of its entering students, and more than half of its alumni earn graduate degrees. Bates employs 200 faculty members and 550 staff.
The college is proud of deep roots in the Lewiston/Auburn community, Maine’s second-largest urban area with a population of approximately 65,000. Bates is located on a beautiful, 133-acre, traditional New England campus in Lewiston, an emerging city with an entrepreneurial climate, a lively arts scene, and a dynamic business community. Bates is 35 miles north of Portland, 140 miles north of Boston, and 350 miles north of New York City.