Retail Development Manager

Retail Development Manager 
Circa £50,000 plus benefits, including a company car and private healthcare (Work Level 5)  
Field-based, this role you’ll work in a hybrid way splitting your time between working from home and travelling to stores across your area (find out more about our hybrid working policy at jobs.coop.co.uk/hybrid-working-policy). 

Field opportunities will cover either Southampton and the surrounding areas, London, or South-East England

Please note this is a field-based role with travel to store sites across your assigned area. A full UK driving licence is required.

We’re looking for a Retail Development Manager to join Co-op Wholesale, where we support over 4,000 convenience stores across the UK. We’re entering our next exciting phase of growth, and with that, we've got new opportunities emerging across Co-op Wholesale, like this one.

In this role, you’ll build positive relationships and work closely with our customers, making sure they’re getting the most out of their relationship with us.

As the face of the Co-op Wholesale business, our existing customers will look to you for advice and support. You’ll need great communication skills, a knowledge and experience of food retail in return, we can offer you a fantastic opportunity to build your networks, learn all about the industry, and really make an impact across our Co-op wholesale network.
 
 

What you’ll do

• Drive and maintain loyalty and sales by building positive relationships and helping retailers to realise their potential and any opportunities for growth
• Create the best experiences for our customers, finding the root cause to any problems they may face in our stores 
• Manage your own schedule, visiting convenience retailers across your region
• Work closely with a range of customers, challenging and educating them when necessary to develop productive relationships
• Take responsibility for driving your own performance and delivering KPIs
• Act as the interface between the head office and customers; working closely with IT, logistics, and operational teams to resolve issues and queries

This role would suit people who have

• Proven track record of driving commercial success in food retail/FMCG sales, with a strong ability to build and nurture strategic partnerships, negotiate high-value agreements, and collaborate with key stakeholders to optimise revenue and market growth.
• Excellent communication skills
• Excellent organisation and time management skills, with the ability to manage their workload effectively
• Strong IT skills with the ability to use Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel confidently

Why Co-op? 

If you have the skills that we need, we can offer you a competitive salary and great benefits package which includes 30% off Co-op branded products in our food stores (as well as other discounts on Co-op products and services).

• An annual bonus (based on personal and business performance)
• 28 days holiday (rising to 32 with service) plus bank holidays 
• A pension with up to 10% employer contributions
• Private healthcare 
• Access to a subsidised onsite gym (at our Manchester HQ)
• Coaching and training to support your career development
• Wagestream app – giving you access to a percentage of your pay as you earn

Building a diverse environment

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We're also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we'll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job.

We'll ask whether you’d like to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme when you apply.

If we invite you to take part in the recruitment process for any of our jobs, we’ll ask you if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate.

You can find out more about our recruitment process at jobs.coop.co.uk/apply-process

You can find out more about the Disability Confident scheme and all our commitments to diversity and inclusion at jobs.coop.co.uk/diversity-inclusion-wellbeing 

Please note that we may close applications for this role early. 

As part of your application, you'll need to complete an online assessment. This assessment typically takes between 45-60 minutes.