Job description
Our client who is a leader in the Lifestyle & Athletic apparel space is looking to bring on a Senior Manager of Merchandising to their team. This will be a contract to hire role that is mostly remote. The details on the role are below.
Onsite Requirement: Once per quarter / season
Overview of the Position:
The Sr. Manager, Merchandising is responsible for driving long-term, sustainable growth for the direct-to-consumer channels through the development of thoughtful and strategic merchandising strategies and ensuring their successful implementation. This position works closely with product line merchandising and planning to adopt the line and partners with creative, marketing and commercial teams to develop and implement seasonal go-to-market strategies. From final buy to in-season execution, this position maximizes business profitability and drives performance to meet overall objectives of the organization.
This role has two direct reports and is responsible for overseeing the seasonal execution of the product teams' vision across all direct-to-consumer touchpoints, including digital, catalog and retail. The position provides strong leadership and positively contributes to the brands high performing culture by inspiring the team to be customer focused, responsive and innovative.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities:
- Merchandise Management
- Collaborate with planning to develop seasonal financial targets for the direct-to-consumer channels and inform the seasonal forecasting and buying process.
- Utilize expertise and market-based information to adopt the product plans and mix to maximize revenue, SKU productivity, and margin through all direct-to-consumer channels of business.
- Lead the development, prioritization, and execution of assortment building, site merchandising strategies, and digital/retail experiences.
- Partner with, and influence, senior management across product line merchandising, design, planning, analytics and finance on merchandising direction, optimal product assortments, financial plans, and marketing strategies.
- Preps cross-functional teams for Season Launch by reviewing assortment plan with key stakeholders and conducting product turnover meetings – highlighting key channel specific stories with key product selling attributes and most current delivery timing.
- Works closely with planning on final buy decisions for channels; provides product rankings to support inventory positions throughout season.
- Owns in-season product management for the direct-to-consumer channels and is responsible for informing cross-functional teams of key strategies and changes throughout season.
- Lead product performance analysis at season, quarter and by drop, as well as at the channel level (i.e. catalog spread analysis). Leverages data to derive key insights to inform future actions.
- Identify channel specific KPI’s and reporting metrics needed to monitor and evaluate business; provide weekly and monthly hits and misses along with action items.
- Product Marketing
- Collaborate with Product Line Merchandising and Product Design to align featured product selections and depiction with product positioning.
- Work with Marketing and Creative to conceptualize product stories and ensure all product marketing campaigns focus on key features, functionality and consumer benefits, drawing the customer to the brand.
- Provide Visual Merchandising, Marketing and Creative teams with relevant product information and ideate on key product content and marketing strategies for all channels.
- Lead the creation of catalog spread layouts, online shopping guides, prouct features and experiences and in-store product flow and features.
- Evaluate proposed creative layouts, content and photography across all direct-to-consumer channels to ensure best product depiction.
- Coordinate aligned catalog and e-com product features and provide cross -selling product options pre and in-season
- Manage and expedite solutions for all web, catalog, retail product description or depiction issues
4. Site Merchandising
- Oversee site merchandising efforts, including landing pages, collection pages, product detail pages, and other shopable areas of the site
- Drive conversion rate improvement through on site optimizations across product detail and category grid pages
- Monitor return rates and disseminate information as needed to product teams
- Leverage on-site data to analyze and propose seasonal shifts to site architecture and navigation
- Develop and drive strategy to improve on site user experience with an emphasis on conversion rate and cart size improvement
- Ensure self and team stay on the forefront of emerging technologies and experiences
- Oversee enrichment process of all seasonal data, ensuring accurate product information flows from internal systems to the customer via prana.com.
- Ensure all key merch/prod prep for ecomm site is completed by calendar deadlines.
- Oversee QA efforts for season launch and monthly updates to ensure product info and product depiction accuracy
Customer and Market Insights
- Actively monitor and analyze key competitors to understand emerging trends and opportunities to improve demand-generating efforts
- Participate in market research, as needed and requested
5. Leadership and Management
- Lead, motivate, supervise and develop direct report(s)
- Prepare and conduct talent/performance assessments and pay reviews
- Actively engage and proactively communicate with colleagues across the management and leadership teams
- Member of prAna’s Commercial Leadership Team and actively participates in meetings
- Promote a healthy, collaborative, high performing work environment
- Foster and build strong working relationships with cross-functional team members
- Demonstrate a point of view about the customer, shopping preferences, product and business opportunities
- Ability to coach, mentor and motivate others
- Be voice to ensure customer experience is optimized
Education and Experience Requirements
- 5 to 7 years of experience in Buying, Merchandising, Product Line Management with a minimum of 3 years focused on direct-to-consumer channels (eCommerce, catalog, retail
- Minimum of 3 years of supervisory experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Fashion or Retail Merchandising highly preferred
- Knowledge and experience in apparel product creation and go-to-market processes
- Proven track record in developing assortments that result in meeting/exceeding financial targets
Technical Skills and Experience
- Merchandising expertise, including data collection, analysis and interpretation in tandem with understanding the customer and market and the competitive landscape
- Proven ability to manage, interpret and report on financial metrics such as margin, style (SKU) productivity
- Proficient in Microsoft Office Suites, including MS Outlook, Word and Excel
- Advanced Excel skills, including pivot tables
- Experience with PLM and PIM programs