Category Manager

If you love beauty, you're in the right place.

As the ultimate curator of over 100 of the most in-demand, highly innovative and boundary-pushing beauty brands, we are the go-to destination for worldwide beauty discovery.

Together through our neighbourhood stores, online presence and loyalty scheme, Space NK has built a flourishing community in which to discover beauty. The customer is at the heart of everything we do, and we will always endeavour to offer everything they need to help them explore, experiment, and enjoy our brands.

Job Description: Category Manager (Fragrance)

Location: Support Office, Central London

Role type: Permanent Employee

Reports to: Category Director

The objective of the Category Manager is to lead a category buying team to deliver the customer & commercial growth and profit targets for your portfolio. Support Category Director to strategically shape plans, collaborating with the Senior Merchandiser/Merchandising Manager to drive the best outcome for the division.

Strategic Objectives

• Attract New Customers through our Brands
• Increase Space NK Brand Awareness & Appeal
• Make it Easy for the Customer to Shop
• Retain Customers & Grow their Spend
• Achieve Scale to deliver Profitability `

Key Accountabilities

Lead a team of buyer/s to manage the commercial performance of portfolio of brands and products with focus on enhancing performance of customer offer on an ongoing basis

• Oversee buyer/s to ensure the product assortment is delivering maximum customer & commercial output
• Working with existing brands to identify & trade into new trends and products
• Lead the team to plan and launch new products with a view of maximising performance of new launches
• Manage performance of underperforming products and brands through communications internally and with brand partners
• Identify and activate quick win commercial opportunities, in line with business priorities

Build & optimise relationships with our brand partners, modelling best-in-class buying leadership to your team:

• Effective contact with brands, conducting regular performance meetings relevant to brand size & profile
• Lead Market Week meeting process, supported by your team & where appropriate the Category Director
• Develop medium & long-term strategy with brands, alongside the Category Director to align to business priorities

Work collaboratively with wider team & other departments, ensuring excellent communications and planning:

• Partner closely with the category Merchandising counterpart to deliver annual budget & key category KPIs, supporting intermittent reforecasts where required (cascading these to the team)
• Manage your team to communicate key brand and product information with key departments across the business, such as Merchandise Planning, Training, and Tech
• Create & maintain joint brand and product marketing plans with other departments, such as Partner & Brand Marketing, PR and Events. Partner with wider marketing team (content, SEO) to identify customer journey enhancements to drive category performance including content support
• Drive business improvement and commercial opportunities across departments
• Lead your team to meet go to market deadlines required by other departments

Proactively trade the Category with omnichannel responsibility:

• Ensure product and brand launch performance is maximised fully, guiding the team to utilise relevant channel levers to deliver the best customer outcome e.g. Brand Spaces, Cash Wrap, digital ratecard packages & Category-owned pages (PDPs, BLPs)
• Oversee the analysis and optimisation strategy of customer journey both in Store & Online:
  • Partnering closely with both Retail Operations & Inventory team to maximise the allocated store spaces via range, brand & product mix to best suit the customer and drive category growth
  • Oversee all category-owned pages (Brand landing pages, PDPs, and edits) to maximise KPI performance, identifying areas to optimise for the team to execute
  • Support team to identify and take action on areas of opportunity including assets, descriptions, navigation, product placements, and trading levers to support customer and sales
• Partner with Technology team to identify opportunities for optimisation and support technology rollouts aligned to Category KPIs e.g. My Matches

Team Development

• Establish team culture which is entrepreneurial and action-oriented supported by analytics
• Establish clear KPIs and objectives for each member of the team
• Ensure clear development plans are in place for each individual
• Hold regular development meetings with direct reports; ensure all team members are receiving regular development feedback

Accountable for the following KPIs

• New customer acquisition
• Category sales & customer performance: overall, YOY, vs Budget
• Brand Sales & customer performance: overall, YOY, vs Budget
• Newness contribution to sales
• Exclusive product launches and contribution to sales
• Range productivity - sales/store, sales/SKU, sales to space productivity
• Stock position: by category and by brand including overstocks and discontinued inventory position
• Category Intake Margin vs Budget
• Brand Income – ratecard marketing, rebates & discount funding
• Online KPI's for Category Owned Pages, YOY & vs Budget (Views, ATB, Conversion)

Required Skills & Experience

• Significant senior level buying and/or category management experience
• Relevant experience in retailing with a proven recording of trading in a fast-paced environment
• Passion & deep understanding of the beauty industry, brands and products
• Proactive, entrepreneurial, self-starter who can identify opportunities and lead a team to pursue them
• Strong people skills with a focus and drive to build strong relationships both internally and externally
• Strong commercial acumen and savvy; highly numerate with strong analytical skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, Power Point and Outlook)
• Comfort with ambiguity and openness to change; willingness to drive new ways of thinking and new processes
• Actively seeks feedback from peers, managers, and team to improve operating model and experience and culture for everyone involved
• Actively seeks feedback from peers, managers, and team to improve operating model and experience and culture for everyone involved

Please note that only successful candidates will be contacted.

All applicants must have the right to live and work in the UK.

If you want to find out more about us, what it is like to work for us, all about our benefits, and our pledges on Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, please visit our website.

Space NK are an equal opportunities employer.

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