Senior Merchandiser

Synonymous with great British design and heritage, Globe-Trotter is a luxury travel lifestyle brand producing handcrafted luggage and leather collections. Established in 1897 and celebrating the 125th anniversary in 2022, Globe-Trotter makes the most beautiful and durable luggage in the world. The business has been Private Equity backed since 2020.

Globe-Trotter is a truly global business trading in more than 80 countries, with significant brand awareness in Japan, Europe and the USA and an increasing footprint in the GCC, China and South East Asia.

Reporting to our Managing Director, we are looking for a Senior Merchandiser to focus on profitability, productivity, and driving collaborative, rounded and rigorous planning, ensuring the right product, at the right time in the right location to achieve sales, margin and stock targets.

In this role, the successful candidate will work with our global teams, supporting short term business needs with pragmaticism and agility, and champion the change necessary to transform Merchandising into a strategic asset, enabling profitable growth.

A strong leader is required to collaborate with key management in new product development, marketing, retail, E-Commerce and Operations; being hands-on with new product launches, inventory and OTB management; driving trade to achieve business objectives.

The disciplined and rigorous candidate will lead with charisma, be highly influential and inclusive, and foster a culture of engagement, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage and oversee the Global Merchandising function.
• As part of the Senior Management Team, support, and lead business strategy.
• Implement efficient processes and standards across the business.
• Mentor and motivate teams to achieve productivity and engagement.
• Build collaborative relationships across functions.
• Report on product performance and drive improvements.
• Deliver strong presentations to colleagues on product strategies, tailoring the level of detail for the audience.
• Lead the critical path process for new product development and launches.
• Maintain the range plan.
• Manage inventory levels and the OTB process.
• Support B2C trading, alongside the territory and channel managers.
• Develop fit for purpose processes and tools and reporting, to include development of the WSSI and OTB infrastructure, to enable trading and stock management goals to be clearly defined and achieved.

Range Planning, Inventory & OTB Management

• Maintain the range plan; optimising the attribute and pricing architecture to maximise trading opportunities for each channel, and sub-channel, in each territory.
• Collate and analyse data to identify trends, opportunities, and risks to the range plan; evolving the plan to maximise opportunities and to incorporate appropriate mix of new launches and collaborations, alongside the core range.
• Manage stock intake, monitoring stock levels, OTB position & terminal stocks with full understanding, maintenance, and management of own WSSI.
• Be accountable for stock levels for all retail locations in all territories, to include responsibility for building the opening stock package for new stores and retail channels.
• Ensure suitable distribution of stock through various channels in each territory.
• Lead demand reviews, confidently analysing and responding to changes in current and future demand, while adeptly challenging forecast robustness.
• Identify and raise PO’s in-line with the planned demand and the production schedule.
• Drive NOOS programs; introducing and managing stock controls and SOPs to maintain inventory stability and optimize sales conversion.
• Working with territory and channel managers to plan-out excess stocks, to include ‘luxury brand’ appropriate promotional and markdown management.

Trading (B2C)

• Collaborate with Marketing and Trading teams to coordinate product availability to support key campaigns and product launches in all territories.
• Working closely with the Operations team to ensure stock moves efficiently through the business; better enabling right stock, right place, right time.
• Support B2C trading, alongside the territory and channel managers; continuously analysing product performance identifying opportunities and risks and sharing regular insights to maximise commercial opportunities.
• Analyse B2C trading performance of products at a store / location level, to make informed analytical decisions to improve efficiency of stock and the range plan.
• Develop and manage the mark-down strategy, recommending products and promotional activity.
• Be the trading voice of the Japan, USA and French operations within the UK office and operations.

Requirements of the role

• 3 years+ relevant merchandising experience in retail leadership roles.
• Experience of multi-channel retailing, to include own stores, department store corners and e-commerce.
• A proven track record within a fast paced and rapidly changing global retailer.
• A proven track record of driving success through commercial and creative thinking.
• Can confidently present department KPI’s to the team, wider teams, and senior management.
• Ability to work under pressure and across all levels of seniority.
• Excellent analytical and organisational skills, able to manage multiple responsibilities and projects.
• A problem solver with a can-do attitude and hands on approach.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to be persuasive, engaging and motivating with others in a consistent manner.
• Japanese and/or Frech speaking would be advantageous.