How To Become A Director Of Merchandising & Marketing: What It Is and Career Path

What is a director of merchandising & marketing and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Harlan Spotts Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a director of merchandising & marketing. For example, did you know that they make an average of $53.12 an hour? That's $110,497 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 33,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

What's a day at work look like for a director of merchandising & marketing?

Harlan Spotts Ph.D.

Professor of Marketing, Western New England University

We have been talking about post-pandemic work, and the key word is going to be flexibility. Flexibility with work environment, could be in the office, could be at home, could be at Starbucks. The concept of "going" to work has changed. So, I see every day and week potentially being different. Companies are seeing how much can be done via web conferencing, so you will see less business travel (not a good thing for the airlines). There will still be some, but less than before. The pandemic as accelerated technology adoption and use across industries, perhaps by 5 years. students will we working in different environments, and across time zones. They did this before, but it will be even more common.

ScoreDirector Of Merchandising & MarketingUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $110,497

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 48.12%

male 51.88%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a director of merchandising & marketing

Explore director of merchandising & marketing education requirements

Most common director of merchandising & marketing degrees

Bachelor's

76.9 %

Master's

11.5 %

Associate

9.1 %

Start to develop specific director of merchandising & marketing skills

Skills	Percentages
Trade Shows	11.33%
Consumer Insights	9.18%
Integrated Marketing	7.40%
Apparel	7.12%
Merchandise Sales	6.67%

Complete relevant director of merchandising & marketing training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New directors of merchandising & marketing learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a director of merchandising & marketing based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real director of merchandising & marketing resumes.

Research director of merchandising & marketing duties and responsibilities

Recommend assortments, planograms and products for retailers to achieve maximum ROI.
Manage all internal company-wide communications, including company intranet, quarterly all- company meetings broadcast to all locations and executive communications.
Deliver notable labor cost savings by implementing a new automate retail point-of-sale (POS) system.
Bring brand to life through in store visual elements including iconic character moments, fixture design, graphics and POS.

Get director of merchandising & marketing experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become a director of merchandising & marketing. The most common roles before becoming a director of merchandising & marketing include store manager, merchandising manager team lead and merchandising director.

Prepare your director of merchandising & marketing resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your director of merchandising & marketing resume.

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