Manager - Consumer & Marketplace

Confidential; Dubai; On-site; AED 240,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential in Dubai is seeking a Senior Buyer/Category Manager to grow sales and market share by delivering a focused product portfolio, pricing, and channel strategy across all marketplaces. You will shape the Business Unit's consumer and category strategy and partner with key stakeholders to maximize profitability.

The role requires 4-5 years in brand/category management, strong analytical skills, and experience presenting to large audiences.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or master's degree in business management/marketing or buying/merchandising.
• 4-5 years of relevant experience with at least 2 years in managing brand/category of products.
• Product/Category/Brand/Industry knowledge
• Experience with presentations to large audiences
• Strong analytical skills to drive insights

Responsibilities

• Create assortments informed by marketplace capacity and insights that drive the integrated marketplace, seasonal strategies, and consumer experience.
• Drive sales by developing comprehensive business plans and long-term strategy.
• Own brand profitability across channels by guiding pricing and intake profitability benchmarks using quantitative insights.
• Develop assortment frameworks and grids aligning category, consumer and channel mapping for growth across the marketplace.
• Lead seasonal forecasting to secure product access and manage inventory, SOH, and sell-through.
• Collaborate with Wholesale and Retail teams to formulate category strategy and drive KPI attainment.

Skills

Strong analytical skills

Presentations to large audiences

Education

Bachelor's/Master's degree in Business Management or Marketing or Buying/Merchandising

Job description

The role holder will be responsible to grow sales & market share of the assigned brand through provision of an effective and efficient product portfolio with the right price and channel segmentation, while improving profitability & growth. The role is responsible for developing the Business Unit's overall consumer/category/marketplace strategy, as well as partnering and maintaining relationships with all key stakeholders to maximizes sales and profitability across all channels.

Role Responsibilities

• Create assortments informed by Marketplace capacity and insights that drive the integrated marketplace, seasonal strategies, and inspirational consumer experience.
• Drive sales from the assigned brand by developing comprehensive business plans & long-term strategy
• Responsible for overall brand profitability across all channels by leading the decision-making process on product pricing and intake profitability benchmarks; based on quantitatively driven insights for accurate planning.
• Develop assortment frameworks & module grids that align Category, Consumer & Channel mapping to elevate brand/category presence, drive segmentation & differentiation, revenue growth across the Marketplace.
• Leads the seasonal forecasting process to secure product access and allocations from brand; enabling growth while managing inventory, SOH and sell through considerations.
• Ensures data driven insights guide brand/category management decisions, including the introduction of new products, channel assortments driven by consumer mindset, product pricing across all regions.
• Ensures access to market intelligence through various sources, benchmark/evaluate competition pricing, new product introductions, category trends which may impact the profitability of assigned category.
• Collaborates with Wholesale channel to understand account specific requirements, investment trends, growth plans, product sell through to formulate the category business strategy for the channel.
• Provisions for achievement of Wholesale KPIs and Sales with the right channel, account & product strategy.
• Collaborates with Retail Merchandising & Category Management to gain insights on consumer trends, store sales, category contribution, growth opportunities, product gaps etc. to develop the category business strategy for the retail channels.
• Monitors & analyzes business performance of category sales, Gross Margins, sell out performance, along with, ensuring key Retail Performance KPIs ITR, GMROI etc. are achieved.
• Applies retail fundamentals like inventory turn, gross margin, markup, and sell through to drive informed & profitable pre-season and in-season decisions focused on assortment mix and depth.
• Monitors pricing from brand/s and liaises with suppliers on product launches, in-store dates, stock availability for product campaigns, marketing launches & events.
• Evaluates local market specific product gaps or opportunities within the category and engages with brand principals to plan, forecast, develop, and provision for products in future seasons.
• Leads the Go-to-Market process and Seasonal Product Presentations, Merchandising frameworks for the category, ensuring clear communication of category, brand, product strategy with all partners & stakeholders.
• Works closely with Consumer & Marketplace Operations to ensure quantitative, insight driven forecasting with brand principals & decision-making on seasonal allocations & account access.
• Collaborates with Visual Merchandising function, Retail Brand Marketing, GTM Manager to ensure seasonal sell-in tools, showrooms, catalogs are up-to-date and provisioned for the seasonal calendar.
• Aligns with Brand Marketing function to ensure maximum visibility of their category through online and offline channels.
• Collaborates with the retail marketing function, to ensure maximum visibility of their category through retail & digital marketing

Technical / Functional Competencies

• Bachelor's / master's degree in business management/ marketing or equivalent, or Bachelor's / master's degree in Buying and Merchandising
• A minimum of 4 - 5 years of relevant experience with at least 2 years in managing brand/category of products
• Product / Category / Brand / Industry knowledge
• Experience with Presentations to large audiences
• Strong analytical skills to drive insights