Senior eCommerce Product Manager - London, N1C 4AG

Senior eCommerce Product Manager - London, N1C 4AG, United Kingdom

UMUK value eCommerce as a key foundational channel to connect artists and fans. This is a key role within a UMUK label to drive their eCommerce merchandise & product strategy. Sitting within the Direct To Fan team you will identify merchandise opportunities, manage design briefs with label creative team and produce and develop profitable merchandise collection ranges that grow revenue across a diverse roster of artist eCommerce stores.

Using your buying and merchandising experience, you will develop multiple artists merchandise collections with label and central creative teams, delivering high quality and sustainable products in line with fashion & seasonal trends. You will oversee the development and critical path of the merchandise ranges, working with creative, product development and production teams, ensuring ranges are delivered on time and in line with the production critical path. You will deliver focused, profitable, and innovative e-Commerce product strategies for each artist, all in line with eCommerce best practice and deliver the best possible customer experience.

This role is unique in that it has creative, commercial and operational elements. The day to day will be varied, fast paced, and often high pressure but always rooted in developing products in line with the labels creative and commercial strategy and achieving an exceptional fan experience that is authentic to our artists and their fans.

The B Side: Skills & Experience

Key Responsibilities

• Be the point of contact for artist teams merch product drops and collections.

• Deliver effective e-commerce product strategies over a wide range of frontline and catalogue artists using your deep knowledge of garment and product development techniques.

• Confidently pitch and present merchandise plans directly within the label and to artist management, looking for opportunities with every artist from developing to established.

• Work with the Direct To Fan Team, creative teams, the N1 Creative team and 3rd party merchandisers to develop artist collection ranges, acting as the central point of contact across teams.

• Work with creative teams (internal and external) to project manage, advise on design and create collection ranges in line with artists design aesthetic and key seasonal trends - in line with UMUK suppliers’ production capabilities.

• Oversee trend analysis, range planning and category development, including mood-board creation to support strategic product planning across multiple artists stores.

• Manage product sampling, coordinating product shoots and utilising project management tools for tracking and briefing relevant teams.

• Drive projects forward proactively, taking ownership of critical paths and confidently escalating when timelines are tight.

• Build a buy matrix to manage forecasting quantities per collection, sell thru, ROS, margins and effectively top up/promote out of stock.

• Analyse and report on collection effectiveness – steer when items need to be repushed and shot – communicating with the marketing teams around CRM, organic and paid activity to help sell the product.

• Engage in research with the N1 Creative with regards to new suppliers to onboard into the business & discuss effectiveness of current ones.

• Work with N1 Creative and suppliers to source appropriate blanks for merchandise, create samples and manage a production critical path to ensure that product is manufactured and delivered to our warehouse on time.

• Manage collection production workflow to include estimating, arranging visuals for approval, pre-production sampling if required, delivery of print files to printer, oversee production and ensure timely project delivery.

• Run an efficient P&L that meets the labels/artists requirements, working with the N1 Creative production team to drive the best prices and margins possible for the products within the collection.

• Work with N1 Creative to ensure the D2C collection calendar is up to date and meets the years growth KPI’s around collection drops and revenue.

• Attend weekly trade & calendar planning meetings with the N1C team and initiate any additional production/design meetings need in order to deliver projects on time.

• Manage the labels eCommerce always on merchandise collection strategy ensuring artist stores remain active outside of the traditional album pre-order and release cycle.

Experience

• Demonstrable experience in eCommerce specifically in fashion/apparel buying & merchandising.

• Confident leading projects from concept to delivery with the ability to present and share ideas with internal and external teams.

• Strong relationship building skills with the ability to make decisions and push projects forward.

• Proactive attitude and comfortable with both creative merchandise development and administrative project management.

• Exceptional project management skills.

• Proven experience managing the full eCommerce merchandise product lifecycle, from initial concept and development through production, launch, trading, replenishment and phase-out.

• Highly proficient with Microsoft excel.

• A demonstrable ability of eComm brand management and the ability to be agnostic, specifically developing always on or evergreen and merchandise collection ranges.

• A passion for music and fashion and as it relates to apparel/merchandise. The successful candidate will have a demonstrable creative strategist mindset to project manage engaging products for artists.

• Ability to manage production critical paths with tight deadlines and support design and creative teams with timelines to get merchandise printed on time.

• Strong knowledge of a wide range of on-trend print and production techniques, including DTG, dye sublimation, screen printing and cut-and-sew processes.

• Strong understanding of garment blanks and the supplier landscape within the music, fashion and merchandise space.

• Experience handling digital artwork files, with a good understanding of composition and colour requirements across digital, litho and screen print formats, including CMYK and spot colour.

• Strong understanding of core eCommerce best practice, with a clear focus on delivering an excellent fan and customer experience.

• Commercially and analytically minded, with the ability to drive revenue performance and deliver against sales targets and wider KPIs.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with confidence presenting and contributing in meetings.

• Comfortable liaising with third-party partners, proactively initiating and delivering projects and improvements.

• Solid understanding of performance marketing principles and how a channel mix supports eCommerce growth and product sell-through.

• Experience using Google Analytics and or other analytics platforms to track performance and inform decision-making.

Desirable

• Experience of merchandise brand management.

About UMG UK

We are Universal Music Group UK – the UK’s leading music-based entertainment company. We exist to shape culture through the power of artistry. We help UK artists produce, distribute and promote the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful music to inspire and entertain fans at home and around the world.​

Bonus Tracks: Your Benefits

• Group Personal Pension Scheme (between 3% and 9%)

• Private Medical Insurance

• 25 paid days of annual leave

• Interest Free Season Ticket Loan

• Holiday Purchase scheme

• Dental and Travel Insurance options

• Cycle to Work Scheme

• Salary Sacrifice Cars

• Subsidised Gym Membership

• Employee Discounts (Reward Gateway)