Merchant - Skin Care

At Sephora, beauty is about feeling seen, valued, and empowered, individually and collectivly. It is connecting deeply with others, celebrating diversity and inclusivity, unlocking your potential and making a difference every day. Together, we belong to something beautiful.

POSITION PURPOSE:

• The Category Merchant will be working on maximizing the sales and growth of the Skincare category while being fully responsible for the permanent and non-permanent merchandising in all stores of Sephora ME.
• She/he will ensure that the products appear at the point of sale at the appropriate time and correct quantities bearing in mind Sephora’s overall retail and category strategies.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Assortment Management and Merchandizing

• Plan and manage product lifecycle, and prepare sales and stock plans under supervision of Category manager
• Ensure proper stock levels in stores and online for display and sales for animations and thematic
• Secure planograms of allocated brands and ensure full merchandizing visibility
• Implement and maintain regional assortment on SKU level and manage allocated catalogue of brands’ portfolio.
• Maintain skincare calendar including launches, expansion and opening of new doors, and discontinuation strategies
• Prepare sales forecast on SKU level by country in alignment with brand budget. Propose the most relevant product mix.
• Monitor stock based on forecasts and flag overstock situations to management, particularly monitoring slow sellers and suggest action plan
• Analyze every aspect of the brand performance (bestselling points…) and ensure that they reach their full potential.
• Conduct quarterly brand assortment analysis and propose action plan on optimization of sku’s and merchandising
• Initiate and follow up on the regulation and compliance of all new sku’s
• Plan activations, launches, animations, and marketing activities with brand partners and internal teams.
• Develop and manage training support with brands and education department.

Brand Management

• Responsible for overseeing the entire lifecycle of skincare brands within allocated portfolio
• Build relationships with partners and organizational stakeholders
• Develop and execute comprehensive brand strategies aligned with company objectives and market opportunities
• Communicate with Brands regularly to ensure projects are developed and delivered on time
• Identify all viable sales opportunities
• Report on progress to the upper management
• Develop engaging sales presentations backed by relevant data and case studies
• Work with marketing and customer service teams to ensure all client issues get resolved efficiently

Omnichannel and Marketing

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams
• Coordinate with relevant teams on brand activation for Ecom visibility, content, and instore animations. Attend the weekly meeting to set M+1 priorities
• Securing optimized brand assets for activations
• Secure samples and gift quantities for ecommerce activations (GWP, PWP…)
• Select brand participation for PR events 3 times a year as per Sephora guidelines (gifting, stand…)
• Coordinate with PR on annual seeding and PR plans with brand partners
• Ensure timely implementation of digital campaigns
• Secure samples and gifts quantities for CRM activations and ensure timely implementation
• Define products to be highlighted in CRM emailers, in line with category priorities
• Coordinate and align with social team on calendar priorities and activations such as competitions, gifts, etc.
• Attend and participate in weekly omni and marketing meetings

Ecommerce

• Define Ecommerce related assortment for Skincare category and ensure assortment’s update communication to all stakeholders
• Ensure balanced e-store representation of brand and SKU launches
• Liaise with Ecommerce team for marketing support (assets, activations…) and ensure its timely delivery from third parties
• Provide regular and timely updates on the digital activations and opportunities that occur on a monthly and repeated basis.
• Secure online exclusivities and pre-launches from brand and ensure successful implementation.

Communication & Reporting

• Prepares monthly category and brand performance KPI’s defined by management
• Tracks monthly brand budgets by country and by store
• Regular meetings and communication with brands to align on brand performance and build constructive and transparent communication.
• Ensure correct budget tracking and timely reinvoicing

Strategy

• Lead the development and execution of CRM strategy and function, including data gathering and quality, database understanding, targeting, marketing deployment and loyalty program enhancement and management.
• Evolve and optimize email, direct mail, SMS and touchpoint strategy to maximize customer loyalty and drive retention
• Evolve loyalty program to be a powerful loyalty driver that is consistent with the vision of the brand
• Drive strategic decision making through effective communication at a senior management level
• Support cross functional initiatives by serving as a thought leader across the company, providing consultation and best practices for CRM and customer engagement.
• Define key priorities for implementation and technologies needed and build data supported Business cases for strategic solutions
• Lead strategy roadmap and end-to-end execution of lifecycle campaigns to increase conversion and success against KPIs by leveraging channels
• Establish strong relationship with Products, Data science, Design, and other counterparts, collaborate on prioritization for roadmap and resolve dependencies

Customer Insights

• Set KPIs targets and assess the impact of CRM project short and long term
• Conduct market research in partnership with the central team to better understand new consumer expectations and rework the loyalty promise accordingly
• Prioritize and scope analysis request from cross functional teams (Marketing, retail, e-commerce) to ensure the right level of support is provided in a timely way (store cannibalization, retention of B&M customers online during lockdown…)
• Establish analytics and reporting structure to educate other leaders about customers and CRM tactics
• Drive analysis of customer value and behavior data to produce actionable insights to embed onto life cycle campaigns that drive business strategies and value

Loyalty Program

• Define and manage the SBP marketing plan / calendar including all activations and brand priorities in partnership with omnichannel and category teams ensuring smooth coordination with external and internal teams.
• Manage all aspects of marketing, media planning and PR related to the Loyalty program as well as the execution of the related direct marketing campaigns (target, offer…)
• Interpret campaign performance data and turn them into actionable business insights and communication guidelines
• Build story telling for the brands using reports to show the profitability of participating/ contributing to the loyalty program gifts
• Partner with Category Managers teams to lead the negotiation with brand suppliers on gifting and offers that will be used for the program
• Monitor closely on all the plans implementation, schedule and activities for all markets and offers to guarantee the consistency and right the image of SBP in all materials.
• Develop Beauty Pass members experience that money can’t buy and leverage on personalization to create unique customer journey to pamper our best members and grow their engagement. 
• Build the brand love for the loyalty program by building a strong promise and communicating loudly about the perks.

Team Structure & Talent Management

• Recommend appropriate organizational, budgetary and resource changes as needed.
• Develop key structures and workflows that contribute to the success of the CRM team and coordination with local and cross functional teams.

SKILLS AND QUALITIFCATIONS

• Minimum 3-4 years’ experience
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and make data-driven decisions
• Proven experience in Brand Management
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet deadlines
• Ability to work effectively both autonomously and as part of a team.

Here, you will find:

• Community, in which authenticity is embraced, and the strength of our differences fuels our collective spirit.

• Culture of empowerment, learning & growth, that offers you the tools, space and opportunity to learn, innovate and lead

• Work that brings, fulfillment. From delighting clients every day, to inspiring our industry at large, every action makes a difference

Join us and belong to something beautiful.