General Merchandising Manager, Japan

Christian Bassett is recruiting a General Merchandising Manager, Japan for a luxury fashion company.

 

• Drive the company Japan’s business based on clear product strategies, overseeing all the merchandising aspects: sales projection, seasonal buys, proper allocation and re-balancing for higher sell-through, training, and seasonal debrief for future product developments. Provide with merchandising solutions in case of tactical actions, in partnership with cross functional teams.

 

MISSION

• Perform the Full Category purchases for the Retail network, ensure the follow up of the performance per store, collection, product range and roll out sales initiatives, support the Store Managers regarding the performance and train the sales teams on the collections.

• Manage and train the team to reach and exceed the target with highest sell through.

 

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• Reporting to General Manager in Japan with a dotted line report to the Worldwide Merchandising Team.

• Manage and drive all merchandising activities on a daily basis and manage and challenge Merchandising teams. Responsible for OTB, analyzing, planning, merchandising, budgeting. Proactive management of merchandising staff and communication with store managers through leadership and supervision to ensure highest level of customer service and product knowledge.

 

Responsibilities include:

• Managing and controlling merchandising budgets

 

Management of merchandising staff, including

• Analysis store performance with product activity

• Proactive problem solving to daily product related issues raised by shop

 

• Responsible for cost control and effectiveness in operation by monitoring all system activities

• Quantitative and qualitative analysis and reporting of sales results

• Construct the product mix and buying KPI during the showroom sales according to Image and Core Offer recommendations.

• Elaborate the planning for new collections’ launches in stores on the basis of deliveries and of the seasonality of the different markets.

• Support the Store Managers for the management of product performance through regular exchanges and presence in stores.

• Train the sales teams on investments, stock issues and Image strategies by way of the information packages and presentations in stores.

• Prepare weekly and monthly reports per collection, per store, per product range and analyze resale rates.

Propose and roll out sales initiatives to enhance the performance by cooperating with several departments: Retail, Visual Merchandising, CRM, Press/Image…

• Manage the stock transfers as well as the restocking.

• Communicate with the product managers on performance feedbacks in seasons, produce a report about the performance by product typology, functions/uses, price VS market/customers/brands at the end of the season.

• Prepare and launch the sales periods.

• Support the new positioning and lead projects connected to the expansion of the stores network (openings).

• Manage the logistics and Outlet business by being reported by the person in charge

 

University graduate or above

• Minimum 5 years experience in a similar position in an international environment

• Mandatory fluency in English

• Brand & Product understanding and sensitivity and good knowledge of the market

• Analytical mindset and appetence for figures 

• Strong communication and negotiation skills

• Leadership

• Strong people management /development skill

 

Only shortlisted candidates will be notified.