Assistant Category Manager

Talabat; Kuwait; On-site; KWD 25,000 - 35,000; Full time

Job summary

Talabat seeks an Astro Category Manager to drive growth for its grocery store, tMart, which offers rapid grocery delivery across the region. The role includes managing supply chains, pricing strategies, and local supplier negotiations.

The ideal candidate will have over 5 years of experience in FMCG, possess strong analytical and interpersonal skills, and be fluent in English. A willingness to adapt and engage in hands-on tasks is essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in product category management.
• Experience with large retailers in FMCG.
• Fluent in English; Arabic is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Oversee category management including assortment and pricing.
• Implement commercial strategy and manage supply.
• Conduct market visits and negotiate with suppliers.

Skills

Detail-oriented

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Interpersonal skills

Cross-functional leadership

Job description

About the opportunity

Role Summary

We’re looking for a Astro Category Manager to join the team and focus on growing our own Grocery Store “tMart”, which is the region’s first cloud store concept offering 30‑minute delivery of groceries at hypermarket prices. The service has expanded rapidly across Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman and Iraq!

Responsibilities

• Full ownership over the category management role in terms of assortments, pricing, offers and supply.
• Ensuring proper implementation of the commercial strategy and strategic guidelines, including categories plan and pricing strategy.
• Providing input to the Ops team flows, adjacencies, tools and templates, fixtures, etc.
• Reviewing and resolving any issues with local suppliers by regular visiting the suppliers warehouse.

Assortment

• Monitoring the daily availability list and ensuring new seasonal items are regularly listed by the supplier.
• Ensuring cost efficiency across our consumers that meets their needs/wants.
• Defining and maintaining the local assortment and integrating the basic assortment for the department/categories.
• Providing regional teams with information regarding products and quantities needed for international and regional contracts.
• Selecting local suppliers, negotiating and purchasing in line with expected needs guided by standards such as cost price, discounts, rebates, payment terms.
• Regular market visits to check the assortment available in the country and pushing our suppliers to source them for us.

Price

• Pricing the items based on Ministry pricing guidelines on a daily basis.
• Collecting market prices and conducting country price audits.

Promos

• Identifying local promo products and pricing each item and submitting forecasting/relevant reordering information to replenishment.
• Developing the country promotion calendar.
• Following up and ensuring effective execution of all activities required for each promotional event.
• Analyzing and providing inputs for more effective promotional activities such as consumer preferences, local competitors and trends.

Candidate Requirements

• You have at least 5+ years of experience in progressive development and management of multiple product categories, matured by working for large retailers (FMCG), in an international setting.
• You have built teams and led cross‑functional projects at scale.
• You are very detail‑oriented, structured and know how to prioritize – you consider yourself as someone who delivers solutions and not bottlenecks to be solved.
• You are willing to do anything necessary for the project to succeed, including working on the warehouse floor when you are short‑staffed to make a customer delivery or to take customer calls. No job is too insignificant, no detail is too small for you.
• You can interact with senior‑level executives and can manage the expectations of multiple stakeholders.
• You are someone energized by the unknown and look forward to learning each day on the job. You have excellent analytical and communication skills and always like to be hands‑on with several tools.
• Additionally, you have robust interpersonal and intercultural skills. You can inspire several teams and stakeholders to rally behind a mission.
• Language skills: Fluent in English mandatory & Arabic can be a plus.