Head of Marketplaces

The Head of marketplaces and Partnerships role is a key position within our Consumer function reporting directly to the Chief Commercial Officer and an integral part of the Senior Management Team. You will be fully accountable for developing both our Marketplace sales strategy and our Publisher strategy.

The role requires someone who can develop strong relationships with B2B partners while at the same time delivering maximum value out of the technical and commercial integrations with those partners.

Wob was born on the marketplaces but eBay and Amazon still represent £100m of sales in 2023. We are the largest seller in the world on eBay across any category. A strong relationship with both tech giants is essential as is the ability to take our fair share of sales. Our US and UK accounts on eBay and Amazon are by far the largest but we have more than 20 additional marketplace accounts that this role will manage across a wide variety of international.

Publishers and new books are a more recent addition to our portfolio. Because of our scale as one of the world’s largest used booksellers, we are firmly committed to helping customers find the book they want. For newly published books it is sometimes not possible to get a used copy but we can sell a new copy and then hopefully buy it back later, so we can re-sell it. That is the Circular Economy in action, and we would expect to be an increasingly important partner to the publishing industry over time.

To address these two challenges, you will lead a cross-functional team, the role will be responsible for optimising our revenue and profitability achieved through multiple global marketplaces and across multiple new books wholesalers and publishers. Through exceptional relationship management and the delivery of a clear roadmap of technical and commercial enhancements, this role will play a fundamental role in our global growth mission.

Key Responsibilities
Some of the key responsibilities for this role are:

- Lead a cross-functional team to design and execute a longer-term global marketplace strategy. Cross functional team includes analysts, business development managers and a technology team which builds the platform to support this activity.
- Be responsible for financial budgeting and cost controls

Marketplaces
- Be accountable for creating an ambitious marketplace optimisation strategy and a supporting roadmap to guide us on our journey and contribute to us becoming a global leader in re-commerce
- Be responsible for trading performance on all global Marketplaces, including co-creation of our Pricing and Promotion strategies
- Represent the Group with senior marketplace stakeholders, furthering our relationships and exploring new opportunities
- Work closely with the Customer Services function to enhance the customer experience we offer to our marketplace customers
- Be accountable for identifying new, global marketplaces to diversify our marketplace sales channels and for reviewing the performance of existing marketplaces
- Lead the development of our marketplace performance reporting, increasing visibility and understanding of key marketplace KPI’s and metrics across the group
- Be accountable for international selling rights and ensure compliance to reduce the risk of account suspensions or restrictions

Publishers and wholesalers
- Own all relationships with all publishers and wholesalers ensuring value creating partnerships and favourable economic terms for Wob.
- Expand our relationship with publishers to find new ways to support their goals and create value for customers.
- Leverage those relationships to secure supply of damaged / returned books from those Publishers and Wholesalers, so books can be sold rather than pulped

About You
We are a private equity backed, for profit B-Corp accredited company meaning you will have a commercial approach to your role.
We are a fast growing, ambitions company and we have achieved our success through having collaborative teams and a joint mission. You will have opportunity to build relationships across the business to achieve your goals whilst taking individual responsibility to innovate and improve both your business area and the wider business.
There are a few specific things we need for this role. Here they are:
Experience, qualifications
- Experience of senior management within a marketplace or within a marketplace relationship management role and awareness of how companies technically integrate with Marketplaces
- Familiarity with the publishing industry is helpful but not essential
- A proven track record in managing B2B relationships with large blue-chip organisations
- A proven track record for delivering sales and value targets
- Experience of managing multi-million pound budgets/P&L’s
- Experience of managing teams, both UK-based and International
- A relevant degree or equivalent qualification
- Previous experience of holding a senior management position within a high-growth organisation
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