Category and Shopper Insights Analyst

Company Overview

First Quality, a family-owned enterprise founded over 35 years ago, has expanded from a modest business in McElhattan, Pennsylvania to a group of companies employing over 5,000 individuals. With locations including corporate offices in New York and Pennsylvania and eight manufacturing sites across the U.S. and Canada, they produce high-quality personal care and household items for large retailers and healthcare organizations. Their offerings include baby diapers, wipes, feminine products, paper towels, bath tissue, adult incontinence items, laundry detergents, fabric finishers, dishwashing solutions, and certain raw materials and packaging components.

Guided by values of humility, unity, and integrity, First Quality harnesses advanced technology and innovation to foster growth and new opportunities. They encourage a collaborative workplace emphasizing continuous learning and professional development aligned with their mission to Make Things Better®.

Role Summary

The Category and Shopper Insights Analyst is a vital member of the Analytics Team, responsible for generating foundational reports, preparing and validating data, and conducting regular analytics. This role moves beyond simply identifying "what happened" in data to exploring the shopper perspective and uncovering behavioral trends, category performance metrics, and growth opportunities. The position offers practical exposure to syndicated data, retailer POS reports, and advanced analytical tools, contributing to business impacts through ad-hoc analyses, performance evaluations, assortment reviews, and collaboration across Sales and Marketing departments.

Key Responsibilities

• Oversee the creation, production, and ongoing maintenance of recurring reports, such as monthly Category Performance Scorecards, weekly retailer reports, and promotional trackers.
• Perform thorough data preparation, validation, and reconciliation to guarantee accurate and consistent system outputs and deliverables.
• Respond to ad-hoc data analysis requests, providing timely insights to Sales and Marketing teams.
• Analyze data to interpret shopper behavior and trends, explaining why events occurred, not just the outcomes, to identify category growth drivers.
• Support reviews of promotions, assortment/lineups, and innovation initiatives using accurate data and preliminary insights.
• Contribute to standardizing reporting and analytic procedures across business units and retail partners for consistency and efficiency.
• Document best practices and processes to enhance team efficiency and knowledge sharing.
• Collaborate with Sales and Marketing to provide dependable data support for customer meetings, category evaluations, and strategic planning.
• Assist in adopting advanced analytics tools to maximize team capabilities.
• Support the development of scalable analytics as the company grows through innovation, new retail partnerships, and emerging opportunities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Analytics, Statistics, Economics, Data Science, or related quantitative discipline.
• One to three years of professional experience, including internships or cooperative education, preferably in analytics, category management, retail, consumer-packaged goods (CPG), or market research.
• Strong academic performance demonstrating analytical and quantitative proficiency through coursework or projects.

Essential Skills and Competencies

• Advanced expertise with Microsoft Excel, including pivot tables, formulas, and chart creation.
• Competence in managing large datasets from multiple sources, including data cleaning, standardization, and integration to ensure accuracy.
• Detail-oriented with an analytical mindset and ability to juggle multiple priorities in a dynamic environment.
• Ability to clearly present data and craft insightful narratives connecting analysis to business implications.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, capable of explaining technical findings to non-technical stakeholders.
• Self-motivated, autonomous worker who initiates tasks and seeks solutions independently.
• Collaborative team member eager to learn and contribute to cross-functional success.
• Passion for consumer-packaged goods, retail market dynamics, shopper behavior, and data-driven decisions.

Preferred Additional Experience

• Familiarity with syndicated retail data platforms, such as Circana or Nielsen.
• Experience with data visualization solutions like Power BI or Tableau.
• Proficient in developing and delivering PowerPoint presentations.
• Exposure to advanced Excel skills, including data modeling and macros.