E-Commerce Beauty Buyer - Cosmetics

takealot.com; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 700,000 - 950,000; Full time

Job summary

takealot.com is seeking a commercially driven E-Commerce Beauty Buyer to lead the Cosmetics category from Cape Town. You will own end-to-end category performance, combining buying, digital trading, assortment strategy, supplier negotiation, pricing, inventory management and customer insight to drive GMV and profitability.

The ideal candidate understands Beauty and e-commerce, knows what customers search for, what converts, and how to translate insights into a high-performing online assortment

Qualifications

• 4–7+ years in e-commerce buying, category management, digital trading or commercial retail.
• Beauty/Cosmetics experience strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to use data to drive GMV, profitability and category growth.

Responsibilities

• Own category performance across GMV, sales growth, gross profit, margin and market share.
• Develop and execute the annual category growth strategy.
• Identify customer, brand, price-point and assortment white spaces.
• Drive customer acquisition, penetration, frequency and basket growth.
• Build beauty and emerging-brand strategies.
• Trade the category daily using real-time performance data.
• Monitor traffic, conversion, search demand, availability and pricing.
• Identify underperforming areas and implement corrective actions.
• Develop online exclusives and first-to-market opportunities.
• Negotiate with brand owners and manage promotions.

Job description

takealot.com , South Africa's leading online retailer, is looking for a highly talented E-Commerce Beauty Buyer to join our Retail team in Cape Town.

We are looking for a commercially drivenE-Commerce Beauty Buyer to accelerate the growth of our Cosmetics category.

This is not a traditional buying role. The Buyer will own the end-to-end commercial performance of the category, combining buying, digital trading, assortment strategy, supplier negotiation, pricing, inventory management and customer insight to deliver sustainable GMV and profitability growth.

The successful candidate will understand both Beauty and E-commerce: what customers are searching for, what converts, what trends are emerging and how to translate those insights into a high-performing online assortment.

Your responsibilities will include:

Category Ownership & Growth:

• Own category performance across GMV, sales growth, gross profit, margin and market share.
• Develop and execute the annual category growth strategy.
• Identify customer, brand, price-point and assortment white spaces.
• Drive customer acquisition, penetration, frequency and basket growth.
• Build clear beauty and emerging-brand strategies.

Digital Trading:

• Trade the category daily using real-time performance data.
• Monitor traffic, conversion, search demand, availability, pricing, promotional performance and SKU productivity.
• Identify underperforming areas and implement corrective actions quickly.
• Capitalise on trending products and emerging demand before competitors.
• Optimise promotional mechanics, bundles, gifting and digital exclusives.

Assortment & Range Productivity:

• Build a customer-led, digitally relevant assortment.
• Use data to determine which brands, products and price points should be expanded, maintained or exited.
• Drive productivity at SKU level.
• Reduce duplication, long-tail inefficiency and aged inventory.
• Maintain strong availability on high-demand and hero SKUs.

Brand Acquisition & Innovation:

• Identify and secure high-growth local, international, social-first and emerging beauty brands.
• Build a pipeline of new brands and product launches.
• Monitor global beauty trends, social media, search behaviour and competitor activity.
• Develop online exclusives and first-to-market opportunities.
• Ensure launches are executed with speed and commercial impact.
• Maintain strong price competitiveness across key products and brands.
• Monitor competitor pricing and promotional activity.
• Balance customer value with margin requirements.
• Develop price architecture across opening, core, premium and prestige price points.
• Lead negotiations across cost, margin, rebates, marketing investment, exclusivity, payment terms and promotional funding.
• Build strategic relationships with brand owners and distributors.
• Develop joint business plans with key suppliers.
• Hold suppliers accountable for availability, launch execution and commercial commitments.
• Partner closely with planning to ensure the right stock is available at the right time.
• Manage stock cover, sell-through, ageing and inventory productivity.
• Protect availability on top-selling SKUs.
• Balance growth ambition with working-capital efficiency.

On-Site Customer Experience:

• Work cross-functionally to improve category navigation, search and discoverability.
• Ensure product content, imagery, descriptions and attributes support conversion.
• Use customer reviews, search behaviour and shopping data to identify opportunities.
• Partner with marketing and site teams to create commercially powerful beauty campaigns and launches.

Qualification & Experience:

• 4–7+ years’ experience in e-commerce buying, category management, digital trading or commercial retail.
• Beauty/Cosmetics experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ownership of meaningful GMV, sales and profitability targets.
• Strong understanding of e-commerce metrics including conversion, traffic, AOV, availability and promotional performance.
• Strong analytical and Excel/data skills.
• Proven ability to use data to make fast commercial decisions.
• Experience managing large SKU assortments is advantageous.
• Strong understanding of digital consumer behaviour and online retail trends.

Key Success Measures:

• GMV and sales growth.
• Gross profit and margin.
• Market-share growth.
• Conversion rate.
• Stock turn.
• Aged-stock reduction.
• New-brand contribution.
• Promotional ROI.
• Speed to market.

The Environment :

• takealot.com employees are entrepreneurial and dynamic, smart, customer- centric, fun and have the shared ambition of takealot.com being the leading e- commerce company in Africa.
• We have fun, work hard, take ownership, work in teams to create solutions, and are always open to direct feedback/new ideas on where we can improve.
• We are short on ego and high on output.
• We are doers and not only thinkers, its all in the execution after all.
• We love what we do and what we are creating .
• We seek to employ an Extra Ordinary Mind who is Smart, has Integrity, and is Hardworking.

If you meet the above you are an Extraordinary Mind so come and join us!

Takealot Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage applicants from the previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities, to apply .