James Kellerman Email & Phone Number

Mattoon, IL, US

US

Appleton, WI, US

Houston, TX, US

• Directed sales performance and profitability by planning, buying and managing Electronics, Toys, Luggage, Furniture, Sports & Fitness, and eCommerce for 850 stores with sales of $22M.
• Best sales performance in the Home division for 2015 with a 7% increase over plan by going after trends in toys and electronics.
• Grew electronics drop ship vendor penetration to $1.1M vs $40K by expanding assortments and categories for tier 1&2 brands.
• Collaborated with senior management on new revenue streams in men’s, women’s, and footwear to drive $6M in incremental sales.
• Grew Black Friday 2015 Beats Headphone promotion to $1.1M from online vendor to store.
• Strategically built competitive pricing strategies for eCommerce toys that offered greater sales conversion, while mitigating margin risk.

Midvale, UT, US

• Site category manager meeting planned sales, margin and inventory goals for $55M volume.
• Sales and profitability driven through focused assortments, brand acquisition, strategic planning, and tactical marketing that grew sales $5M over prior year.
• Utilized negotiation skills and communication expertise to maximize sales and profitability by turning around the category’s $1.2M sales deficit into a $200K increase over plan, and 7% increase in margin for Q4 2013.
• Increased Audio Video tier 1 brand sales penetration by 35% YOY for 2013 through competitive pricing models.
• Increased conversation rate for computers from 1.3 to 2.9 by focusing in on top selling tier 1 tablet and laptops.
• Developed 2 direct reports, assistant buyer, associate buyer.

Chicago, IL, US

• Responsible for the development and execution of financial, assortment and promotional strategies for $84M GPS and Portable Audio categories for 2000 Sears-Kmart stores and eCommerce.
• Grew Sears.com GPS accessory category by 52% YOY in 2012, by improving site content, enhanced SEO, price structure and social media.
• Developed new eCommerce pricing strategies for GPS and MP3 that increased attach rates by 17%.
• Worked with buyer on developing style level assortment plans and brand strategies that supported margin and sell through goals that maximized sales.
• Assisted in contract negotiating and new business development funding that supported advertising, signing, displays, and markdowns.

• Let all buying actives for multi-site eCommerce sporting goods retailer with $10M in sales.
• Developed strategic sourcing plans that helped grow private label baseball and soccer accessory categories by 27% over prior year.
• Designed and developed direct mail catalogs for Baseball, Softball, Soccer and Football delivered to 2million households that grew sale 27% over prior year.
• Built out merchandising and marketing initiatives for all sites under Matrix Sports, consisting of item creation, brand and landing pages, banners and pricing models.

La Canada-Flintridge, CA, US

• Promoted within two years to company’s second largest volume division, generating $52M in sales.
• Drive sales over company average for 3-year period, realizing a 12% increase per year.
• Developed sales and marketing strategies for print, email, radio, in store training, and enhanced product assortments that successfully competed directly with national chain and grew sales in select adjacent stores 27%.
• Conceived annual Baseball University training program to aid store staff and management on new products with hands on participation.Buyer-Women’s Apparel
• Drove buying, OTB, margin, markdowns, and finial planning for all woman’s sportswear and junior apparel categories in 43 stores, $35M in sales.
• Created annual advertising plan for newspaper, direct mail, radio, and in store point of sale promotions that helped drove sales increase of 20% for prior two years.

US

• Managed buying responsibilities for better swimwear in 75 stores, $5M in sales.
• Awarded Assistant Buyer Spring season (2001, 2003) for larges sales increase over plan.
• Delivered #1 performance for the sportswear division for better swimwear. Allocated additional inventory to high volume stores, sourced new and eliminated poor performing vendors, developed compelling advertising.
• Developed off price opportunities to offset lower margin performing vendors and exceeded margin plan by 65%.
• Forecasted sales and markdowns by month and vendor for seasonal business plans based based on historical data, trend, new stores, competition, and vendor support to exceed plan.
• Shortage coordinator for women’s sportswear that improved shrink 1.5% by focusing on store visits, monthly store correspondence, and vendor touch base